Productivity and R&D at the Firm Level in French Manufacturing

In a companion study to that of Griliches and Mairesse for the United States, we have investigated the relationship between output, labor, and physical and R&D capital during the 1972-1977 period for a sample of 182 R&D performing firms in the French nnufacturing industries. Our results are quite comparable to those obtained for the U.S. The relationship between firm productivity and R&D appears both strong and robust in the cross-sectional dimension of the data; it is less so in the time dimension. However, the within-firm estimates are still significant and of a likely order of magnitude.In this respect, they are more satisfactory than the U.S. ones. We show that this is largely due to a better measurement of the variables: (1) the fact that we can use a value-added measure of output instead of sales (or equivalently that we include materials among the factors of the production function); (2) the fact that we can correct the measures of labor, physical capital and output for the double counting or expensing out of the labor, capital and materials components of R&D expenditures.

A non-ergodic probabilistic cellular automaton with a unique invariant measure

To appear in Stochastic Processes and their Applications.International audienceWe exhibit a Probabilistic Cellular Automaton (PCA) on the integers with an alphabet and a neighborhood of size 2 which is non-ergodic although it has a unique invariant measure. This answers by the negative an old open question on whether uniqueness of the invariant measure implies ergodicity for a PCA

Three cases of identity (re)construction through art interventions: the dialogical and the 'sensible'

Identity construction (IC) cannot be reduced to discourses, nor to individual responsibility. Alvesson & Wilmott (2002) suggest two main processes of identity construction : identity regulation (IR, the discursive practices of identity definition) and identity work (IW, the interpretive activities involved in reproduction of self-identity). Based on this dialogic conception of IC, we wonder whether artistic interventions could play a significant role in the IC process, especially through its ability to address the relational, sensible, emotional, and affective dimensions. In other words, our paper intends to better understand the role of experience and the embodiment of sensemaking in the dialogic process of identity construction. In this perspective, we will focus on cases where art interventions take place in working situations at some crucial moments of IC. Exploring the dimension of the sensible encapsulated in artworks and art interventions allows in particular to better grasp how collective understanding of organizations and their transformations hinge on subjectivity (Abrir 2012). This knowledge is generally recognized as disruptive, because of the heterogeneity of the two words of art and organization, the ability of art for ―not-knowing or more generally the ability of art and aesthetics for promoting contradictory emotions. The dimension of the sensible brought by art is characterized by its subjectification power and by its value sharing (the role of emotions and affects, the construction of subjectivity) and value-adding. Our argument is that art, by organizing the co-creation of work-related sensible forms, triggers and performs - in ways we strive at investigating - a collective and dialogic process between IR and IW

An Art-Based, Collective and Dialogic Ethnographic method -Unveiling corporate restructuring practices

Restructuring practices belong to today's organizational life. Even if the phenomenon is not new it significantly evolved over time, both in terms of motives and in terms of expressions, from major events to permanent practices, from crisis to competitiveness restructurings, from reactive to more proactive decisions, from highly visible to more silent decisions. Much debated in popular medias, restructuring issues have been also inspiring scholars from various fields (sociology, economics, management, law...) for now three decades. But at the same time, academic literature, especially in management, has hardly contributed in understanding the deep complexity and the multiple hidden dimensions of restructuring situations. We suggest ethnographic studies could open the " black box " of restructuring issues, thus complementing the inevitably over-simplified models testing the explanatory relationships between a set of variables or constructs. Traditional ethnographic method is scarcely chosen by scholars analyzing restructuring issues, mainly for reasons related to practical access to fieldwork: restructuring is a hot issue, and it remains difficult to access information and informants in a restructuring organization. In order to overcome these issues, we developed a specific research method what we call an Art-Based, Collective and Dialogic Ethnographic method (1.), both in its deliberate choices (1.1.) and its emergent dimensions (1.2.). Then we describe the outputs of the method (2.), in terms of creating new knowledge about restructuring issues (2.1.), but also in terms of fostering new ways of teaching, thinking or practicing restructurings (2.2.). In the final section, we discuss the basic principles of the method as well as its outcomes, especially in terms of creating "vicarious experiential knowledge" (3.). This method is based on three main features. First, we suggest investigate restructuring issues through artworks. Second, as restructurings are multi-actor situations and multi-dimensional phenomena, research on restructurings could benefit from a heterogeneous and multi-disciplinary group of actors as a community of inquirers confronting their points of view and reflecting together about the complexity and the heterogeneity of restructuring phenomena in a dialogical process of investigation. Third, combining in the same research design a heterogeneous group of actors and a series of artworks about restructurings can lead to innovative research methods: collective comments about artworks and indirect analysis of restructuring, reflexive analysis of actors' involvement, comments and discussions used as data, what we propose here as a new form of organizational ethnographic research

Management of asymptomatic arrhythmias: a European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA) consensus document, endorsed by the Heart Failure Association (HFA), Heart Rhythm Society (HRS), Asia Pacific Heart Rhythm Society (APHRS), Cardiac Arrhythmia Society of Southern Africa (CASSA), and Latin America Heart Rhythm Society (LAHRS).

Asymptomatic arrhythmias are frequently encountered in clinical practice. Although studies specifically dedicated to these asymptomatic arrhythmias are lacking, many arrhythmias still require proper diagnostic and prognostic evaluation and treatment to avoid severe consequences, such as stroke or systemic emboli, heart failure, or sudden cardiac death. The present document reviews the evidence, where available, and attempts to reach a consensus, where evidence is insufficient or conflicting

2015 ESC Guidelines for the management of patients with ventricular arrhythmias and the prevention of sudden cardiac death the Task Force for the Management of Patients with Ventricular Arrhythmias and the Prevention of Sudden Cardiac Death of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Endorsed by: Association for European Paediatric and Congenital Cardiology (AEPC)

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Reversal : le partage de la parole comme expérience sensible, esthétique, et politique

Artistic interventions within organizations meet the issue of their political stance and their critical ability. Can the art intervention foster a humanization of the organization and lower the arbitrary and authoritarian regime? My own experiments through the mean of a discussion device and a protocol based on the rule: “you choose who you listen to, you cannot choose who you talk to”, strive at opening a more egalitarian sharing of the speech on the organizational stage. Drawing on Rancière’s aesthetic and politic theories, I investigate two cases where my intervention resulted in an increased enforcement of power and a restriction of the freedom to speak. By describing the internal logics underlying the actors’ experience of the sensible, I outline a conception of a dialogism not so much concerned with the right to speak and the claim for acknowledgement, as with the inevitable authoritarian quality of listening. The critique of my intervention and my art device and the consideration of the manners in which the actors perceive the heterogeneous dimensions of speech delineate an art form of intervention as an aesthetic education. Training a dissensual listening would mean knowing how to discern any voice among the rustling others, and knowing how discernment is arbitrary. I conclude by circumscribing which ethic responsibility I need to assume in order for my art approach towards organizations to qualify as a true political aesthetics in the sense of Rancière.Les interventions artistiques dans le monde des entreprises soulèvent la question de leur capacité critique, et de leur posture politique. L’artiste peut-il contribuer par son intervention à humaniser l’organisation, et diminuer l’exercice de l’autorité arbitraire qui s’y exerce ? Mes propres expériences au moyen d’un dispositif de discussion particulier, basé sur le principe « on choisit qui on écoute, on ne choisit pas à qui on parle », tentent d’instaurer un partage de la parole plus égalitaire sur les scènes ordinaires de la vie organisationnelle. En m’appuyant sur les théories de Jacques Rancière au sujet d’une esthétique politique, j’analyse deux cas où l’introduction de mon dispositif, destiné à ouvrir plus de possibilités d’écoute égalitaire, a résulté en conflits et en renforcement de l’autorité et de la confiscation de la parole. La description des logiques internes à l’expérience sensible des acteurs mène à penser une forme de dialogisme fondé non pas tant sur l’opposition entre autorité et dissensus, mais sur la prise en compte de l’autoritarisme de l’écoute elle-même. La critique de mon dispositif et de la manière dont sont activées les dimensions contradictoires du sensible de la parole, telles que les perçoivent les acteurs, ouvre sur l’art comme éducation esthétique à une forme d’écoute « dissensuelle », qui sache discerner les voix dans le bruissant de la scène de parole, tout en sachant que tout discernement est arbitraire. J’en déduis le type de responsabilité éthique que doit assumer mon approche des organisations par l’art, pour que l’esthétique au sens de Rancière rejoigne le politique en pratique

Reversal : the sharing of speeech as a sensible, aesthetic and political experience

Les interventions artistiques dans le monde des entreprises soulèvent la question de leur capacité critique, et de leur posture politique. L’artiste peut-il contribuer par son intervention à humaniser l’organisation, et diminuer l’exercice de l’autorité arbitraire qui s’y exerce ? Mes propres expériences au moyen d’un dispositif de discussion particulier, basé sur le principe « on choisit qui on écoute, on ne choisit pas à qui on parle », tentent d’instaurer un partage de la parole plus égalitaire sur les scènes ordinaires de la vie organisationnelle. En m’appuyant sur les théories de Jacques Rancière au sujet d’une esthétique politique, j’analyse deux cas où l’introduction de mon dispositif, destiné à ouvrir plus de possibilités d’écoute égalitaire, a résulté en conflits et en renforcement de l’autorité et de la confiscation de la parole. La description des logiques internes à l’expérience sensible des acteurs mène à penser une forme de dialogisme fondé non pas tant sur l’opposition entre autorité et dissensus, mais sur la prise en compte de l’autoritarisme de l’écoute elle-même. La critique de mon dispositif et de la manière dont sont activées les dimensions contradictoires du sensible de la parole, telles que les perçoivent les acteurs, ouvre sur l’art comme éducation esthétique à une forme d’écoute « dissensuelle », qui sache discerner les voix dans le bruissant de la scène de parole, tout en sachant que tout discernement est arbitraire. J’en déduis le type de responsabilité éthique que doit assumer mon approche des organisations par l’art, pour que l’esthétique au sens de Rancière rejoigne le politique en pratique.Artistic interventions within organizations meet the issue of their political stance and their critical ability. Can the art intervention foster a humanization of the organization and lower the arbitrary and authoritarian regime? My own experiments through the mean of a discussion device and a protocol based on the rule: “you choose who you listen to, you cannot choose who you talk to”, strive at opening a more egalitarian sharing of the speech on the organizational stage. Drawing on Rancière’s aesthetic and politic theories, I investigate two cases where my intervention resulted in an increased enforcement of power and a restriction of the freedom to speak. By describing the internal logics underlying the actors’ experience of the sensible, I outline a conception of a dialogism not so much concerned with the right to speak and the claim for acknowledgement, as with the inevitable authoritarian quality of listening. The critique of my intervention and my art device and the consideration of the manners in which the actors perceive the heterogeneous dimensions of speech delineate an art form of intervention as an aesthetic education. Training a dissensual listening would mean knowing how to discern any voice among the rustling others, and knowing how discernment is arbitrary. I conclude by circumscribing which ethic responsibility I need to assume in order for my art approach towards organizations to qualify as a true political aesthetics in the sense of Rancière