Peut-on transmettre savoirs et connaissances? / Can we transmit knowledge? / Si possono trasmettere saperi e conoscenze?

This article challenges the common idea that teaching means transmitting knowledge. This statement seems unsustainable if one analyzes the problems of communication in teaching. These problems are related to the ways of listening and understanding and also to the content of communication. Hence, we propose to focus our attention on teaching as a help for learning, on learning as a process of action and decision, and on the regulation of this process. This alternative point of view doesn’t have the same considerable impasses that the idea of teaching as transmission does. Lastly, this paper clarifies the epistemological assumptions of the two competing points of view. Both the example of university education and the example of training for work analysis with the goal of prevention in a healthcare service are useful to the discussion

Prévention de la pénibilité : une approche contradictoire ?

In France, recent laws concerning retirement foresee the obligation to reach agreements in order to prevent some risks, whose disabling consequences imply forms of compensations. These norms raise a number of issues: the language used to define risks, damages and their consequences, generates ambiguities, and some contradictions with the norms concerning health and safety at work appear. It is plausible that this depends on distorted interpretations of the general prevention principles that have been widespread for a long time, which inhibit to reduce effectively the high rates of work accidents and professional diseases

Organizational analysis, occupational medicine and union action: a possible encounter / Analisi organizzativa, medicina del lavoro e azione sindacale: un incontro possibile

Italian union’s and occupational medicine’s traditions about safety and health in work situations are compared with the study programs upon which a joint research by Franco Mosca, unionist, and Maria Angela Breveglieri, occupational physician, is based. This research, which concerns the intermediate organizational processes between production and distribution of agricultural products, stimulates reflections and interventions about both the logic of production and the workers’ needs for prevention and well-being. The introduction to the book that illustrates the research (Lavoro organizzato, salute e azione sindacale in un comparto agricolo - Organized Labour, Health and Union Action in an Agricultural Sector, Torino, 1994) discusses the possible encounter between organizational analysis, biomedical action and union action

Work analysis for prevention according to the "Organization and Well-being" Program / L’analyse du travail pour la prévention selon le Programme « Organization and Well-being » / L’analisi del lavoro per la prevenzione secondo il Programma “Organization and Well-being”

A case study concerns a public health service where work analysis, oriented towards primary prevention, is repeatedly performed over a long period of time. The goal is to present the approach of the Interdisciplinary Research Program “Organization and Well-Being”, that has been active for three decades. This approach is based on the Organizational Action Theory and concerns the analysis of work processes’ regulation. It takes care of the well-being of people at work and implies that the analysis, carried out by the workers themselves, coincides with the transformation of the work processes. The debate is open about the possible connections between this approach and the ones that share the same epistemological premises

Organizational choices as drivers of work intensity

In this paper we offer some new insights into the interpretation of the relationship between the introduction of Information Technology devices and their effects on working time. Prevailing theories suggest a mechanistic link between technology adoption and its effects on work, both in terms of quantity and quality. In contrast, we claim that technology adoption is a means to implement organizational choices regarding both the technical and the social structure of tasks. Drawing our evidence from a case study describing the introduction of a new ERP system in a car rental company, we show how these organizational changes affect the pace of work activities, the balance between working and leisure time and the balance between production and learning time

Dispute sur les conceptions du processus de décision / A dispute about the conceptions of the decision process / Disputa sulle concezioni del processo decisionale

What does it mean to make a decision? Does a decision theory exist? How can we understand decision making? By using the traditional literary form of the “dispute”, the authors explore the various approaches to the theoretical and empirical issue of decision making. Each of the three fictional characters represent a different way to approach the problem, each one showing, through a lively debate and dialogue, a specific point of view on what decisions are and how they can be understood. But this dispute is not just about decision making in itself. The characters also represent very different views about what an enterprise is, what rationality is, what are freedom and reality

Society, firm, individual : the striking topicality of Taylor’s “vision of the world”

This study highlights the need, in both teaching and research, to come back to the original texts of great authors and to situate each “ vision of the world” in a long term historical perspective.Taylor; vision of the world; utopia; organisation; work; firm; individual; society; history

The relevance of Giddens' structuration theory for organizational research

Anthony Giddens' Structuration Theory is probably one of the sociological theories more directly referenced and more widely used, in a variety of ways, in organizational research. Why is that, and what does it mean for organizational research? In this paper we explore this issue by reviewing some early, influential contributions, within the organizational field, that used Giddens' theory as the main reference. We will show that the actual utilizations of such theory are very heterogeneous in many relevant concepts, although they are all moved by similar theoretical needs. We also propose that in order to properly answer to those needs, organizational research should focus on some key elements that, while being central in Giddens' contribution, are not always interpreted consistently by "Giddensian" organization scholars. Finally, we will argue that it is possible for the organization reflection, even when it is not built upon Structuration Theory, to share and realize Giddens' main "message" to the organizational discipline: the need for an organization theory truly based on an epistemological view that allows to overcome the objectivist / subjectivist dilemma

Le travail de soudure pour l’ingénierie nucléaire / Il lavoro di saldatura per l’ingegneria nucleare

A welding work process in a plant for the production of heavy components for the nuclear industry is analyzed through two different methodologies. The first analysis concerns the work of welders, according to the Méthode de l’Auto-confrontation, proposed by Daniel Faïta and widely utilized in France. An organizational analysis, extended to a biomedical analysis of health and safety conditions of workers, concerns the whole welding process, according to the Method of Organizational Congruences, proposed by Bruno Maggi, and adopted for three decades within the Interdisciplinary Research Program “Organization and Well-being”. The two methods’ complementarity and synergy, already discussed in previous publications, are emphasized both in diagnostic terms and in relation to possible work transformations aimed at improving effectiveness, efficiency and workers’ well-being