A call for employee creativity not to be railroaded: the SNCF in the middle of the tracks

Appel à la créativité des agents pour « sortir des rails »: la SNCF au milieu des voies

Justine Arnoud () and Isabelle Vandangeon-Derumez ()
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Justine Arnoud: IRG - Institut de Recherche en Gestion - UPEC UP12 - Université Paris-Est Créteil Val-de-Marne - Paris 12 - Université Gustave Eiffel
Isabelle Vandangeon-Derumez: IRG - Institut de Recherche en Gestion - UPEC UP12 - Université Paris-Est Créteil Val-de-Marne - Paris 12 - Université Gustave Eiffel

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Abstract: How has the SNCF, the French national railway, taken actions for appealing to the creativity of its employees in order to cope with the opening of the country's rail system to competition ? To explore these actions, a pragmatic approach has been adopted to a situated creativity associated with the possibility of investigating work situations together in cases of doubt. This fresh approach is useful for understanding how the SNCF in Normandy has modified its actions, which have been the focus of a longitudinal study. On two occasions, employees had the feeling of a creative group experience. A granular analysis of this experience helps us better understand how it could occur in a firm with the reputation of being a big bureaucracy ; but it also emphasizes the limits of this experience and the quick return to rational, normative approaches to human actions, which are not well suited to fostering creativity. These unexpected experiences of creativity are discussed along with the difficulty of forging a new understanding of creativity within organizations.

Keywords: Créativité; Collectif; Pragmatisme; Enquête (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-06-02
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Published in Gérer et Comprendre. Annales des Mines, 2020, 140, pp.41-51. ⟨10.3917/geco1.140.0041⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02732986

DOI: 10.3917/geco1.140.0041

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