Cahier n° 3 - Roles and skill of managers in a dynamic of transformation and innovation

Companies are contending with a world in which repeated crises call for constant transformation. While they agree that managers need to acquire new roles and skills many of them raise questions as to how to meet such challenges. This is the purpose of this study which is based on the testimonies of managers, including HR managers and top executives. Before analysing the practices and systems identified, it presents academic research addressing these questions and sheds light on the contrasting representations that complexify the task of providing support for managers ...

Confronted with increasing external complexity and uncertainty, managers are also subject to internal tensions linked to contrasting justifications for the need for transformation. Such a context makes it even more difficult to understand the situation of managers who play a central role in the regulation and commitment of their teams. How do managers faced with these new demands go about their job? What are the courses of action available to them?

Managers devise, in a more or less explicit and formalised way, new regulating mechanisms and new managerial practices to deal with paradoxes, by either accepting, confronting or transcending them. But what are the "support" functions doing to help and support them in addressing these new challenges?

The return of the manager with the capacity to act based on renewed, innovative ways of thinking and a systemic approach is needed to implement transformation in action...