À quoi sert l’histoire des entreprises ? « We did not know we were so rational ! »
Do firms take any interest in their own history ? Is historical knowledge of any use to them ? Starting from concrete experiences of dialogue and cooperation between researchers and temporary work firms, this paper demonstrates the complexity of the firms’ relationship to their own history and to so...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | fra |
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ENS Éditions
2010-11-01
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| Series: | Tracés |
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| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/traces/4729 |
| Summary: | Do firms take any interest in their own history ? Is historical knowledge of any use to them ? Starting from concrete experiences of dialogue and cooperation between researchers and temporary work firms, this paper demonstrates the complexity of the firms’ relationship to their own history and to social science. Most influential temporary work firms seem adamant to better understand the economic, social, institutional and legal context in which they operate. Because they were threatened with a ban for a long time and because they are particularly sensitive to legislative and political change, temporary work firms also look at history for evidence of their usefulness and for material to prepare for the future. With such institutions used to dealing with social science, historians cannot claim to be the holders of absolute, unquestionable knowledge. They should on the contrary see firms as places where essential, although non-academic, knowledge, is produced. They should therefore attempt to construct their research projects in cooperation with the firms’ stakeholders, so that it can be both useful to the firm and scientifically relevant. |
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| ISSN: | 1763-0061 1963-1812 |