Sociology of logics of action

The sociology of logics of action is a theory of Sociologie of the organizations developed by Henri Amblard and Philippe Bernoux. It is directed in three directions:

need for exceeding the traditional corpus of sociology of the organizations.
impossibility of thinking the Organization S apart from dialectical enters the Conflit and the Coopération.
the rearticulation of theoretical units being able a priori to seem exclusive.

Principle of logics of action

The concept of logic of action invites to a multipolarity theoretical and reintroduced cultural, historical and psychological dimensions in the strategic analysis.

How to define it? To give an account of logics of action, it is to seek what founds the choices of the actors, it is to include/understand which rationalities are with work behind each Action (understanding approach). But the logic of action is not an immutable causal structure, because the actor does not exist in oneself but it is built and defined as such by its action, and consequently logics evolve/move according to the actions considered and not of the actors taken in them even (thus can coexist of strategic and co-operative logics). The logic of action joins together two elementary entities, the Acteur and the situation of action. Meeting of these two dimensions are born from the interactions through which logics of action will materialize.

Within the framework of a sociology of logics of action, there exists a plurality of authorities which accommodate these logics in construction. This induces the possibility and the need for a theoretical pluralism. But how to justify this theoretical pluralism épistémologiquement? While opposing asceticism dominating epistemology S bachelardiennes and popériennes, one resorts to three complementary epistemological positions:

First of all, while following epistemological anarchism of Paul Feyerabend, not only the Théorie S rivals cannot inevitably be confronted the one with the others because the proposals and the facts that they describe in are dependant, but moreover, certain facts could not be revealed without resorting to rival theories.
According to Robert Pahre and Mattei Dogan, the objects, the concepts must be moved from one field to another, from one discipline to another. This posture can prove very promising in scientific term of Innovation.
Lastly, the introduction of the Réseau like crucial factor of the construction of the scientific fact, that one owes with Michel Callon and Bruno Latour, tends to justify the recognition of a rationalist epistemology not .

For holding of the sociology of the action, it is thus important little which the combination of theories as various as those of Michel Crozier, Luc Boltanski, Renaud Sainsaulieu and Michel Callon is a heresy, as from the moment when the organisational problem can gain in limpidity following the confrontation of theories different, even contradictory between them.

Methodology

Method of observation

The plural actor

The sociology of logics of action being pluralist, it explores six dimensions of the actor:

the strategic actor.
the actor social-history - in reference to the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu.
the identity actor.
the cultural actor.
the actor groupal
the instinctual actor - this last dimension returns to the socio-psychoanalytical theories of Eugene Enriquez.

Analysis of the situation

As for the analysis of the situation of the action, it must integrate:

historical context and Institution nel . I.e. it must reintroduce the external factors with the operation of the organization like the Marché, history and institutions.
the authority symbolic system and mythical . The character founder of the Myth S and the importance which they play in any human society suppose that one studies them “with whole share” in the organizations. It is true indeed that the company is populated myths, hero, scapegoats… In the same way, the Symbole S are omnipresent there.
the device of the Situation . The situation is to some extent forced by the involved objects. They take part in fact in the formation of logics of action.
history of the Undertaken . The companies are made starting from various experiments which are kept in general in the conscience of the members. It generate a Culture, practices, types of behaviors, systems of equivalence which make it possible to the protagonists to evolve/move in a common world. To recall the history of a company, through its controversies, achievements, its agreements and to analyze it from the diachronic point of view thus seem essential to include/understand it as well as possible.

The control of the change in organization

To finish, empirical methodology which is used as a basis for a sociology of logics of action, is based on the installation of multimode interventions. Concretely, the sociology of logics of action is built empirically on a grid of analysis which follows various stages:

The phase of contextualisation

During this phase is reconstituted the concrete system of action to the direction crozérien of the term, while taking account of reasoning which is not pressed exclusively on this current.

Four moments are to be distinguished:

the census of the agents and delimitation of the network.
the highlighting of the task of the actors and the perception which the actors have of this task.
determination of the stakes and the dominant modes of equivalence as well as the organisational resources and the zones of uncertainty.
Then at the last time, one highlights the identity mechanisms and the system of regulation.

The phase of the possibilities of agreements

It consists of a double location: that of the agents occupying an important place as a whole studied and likely to intervene, and that of spaces and objects able to be able to constitute the support of conventions or new agreements.

Thus three moments ago.

Initially, one identifies the key actors according to the savings in size, one determines their capacity thus to play the part of translator or with being translated.
In the second time, the places of resistance to change or the potentialities of change must take shape.
In the third time, it is necessary to wonder which are the translations to be operated.

The control of the change

The change must be introduced here by considering that the success of this one depends on the structuring of the company in network.

One locates three more principal moments.

the analyzes of phases 1 and 2 are initially communicated to the personnel, so that the field of possible can take shape.
In a second phase, the process of change must engage starting from problematization, if possible in accordance with the installation of a network intraorganisationnel.
Finally last moment, the action is committed. It is not in so far as it is necessary to slacken vigilance and it is necessary to continue to analyze all the relevant elements of the situation.

With this multi-field approach which mixes very diverse influences skilfully, sociology becomes diagnostic tools as much as a useful tool for the change in company. Thus it finds its place beside other sciences of the action or management, while being pressed on a return ticket permanent between theory and practical.

Internal bonds

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