This doctoral essay studies the work of supervisors in a large industrial company, Électricité de France (EDF), a publicly owned monopoly which became a private corporation on a competitive market. Engaged in a process of " modernization " since the 1990's, EDF reshapes its work organization, within which supervisors (the first level of management, either " agents de maîtrise " or " cadres " in french) hold an uncomfortable place. They have to " lead the change " with limited autonomy, to foster employee engagement, and to clear out their own (and the employer's) responsibility whenever the employees' occupational stress and mental health are at stake. In accordance with their intermediate position in the hierarchy, supervisors carry out daily accomodations between prescribed and real work, leaning on their personal relation with the members of their team. This accomodation work - a particular type of organization work - is analyzed in this survey, on the basis of a hundred of interviews (with supervisors from most of the corporate divisions in France), four years as a participant observer in the corporate human resources direction, and the examination of the company's archives (policy documents, health and safety committe minutes, private archives of training professionals). It raises the question of the supervisors' role in organization reengineering. Marginalized by monitoring tools and automatic control devices, relegated to the management of interpersonal relations, they confront a series of contradictions and resolve them on the shop floor, while trying to keep up with the company's ambition : making " real managers " out of managers of last resort.
Managing in the last resort : the work of supervisors at Électricité de France (EDF)