Ideas and Ideals: Essays on Politics in Honor of Stanley Hoffmann by Stanley Hoffmann

Author:Stanley Hoffmann [Hoffmann, Stanley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General, Political Ideologies
ISBN: 9780429719295
Google: xAScDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 46179716
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-04-05T10:01:44+00:00

14

Traditional French Management and the Competitiveness Imperative

JANICE McCORMICK

The unified European market is presenting a test of the strength of the economies of each of the twelve member nations. While committed to a strong European market, leaders of each country have enacted policies to improve their national economic competitiveness, realizing that the key to leadership within the European community lay in a stable economy, sound economic policies, and strong healthy businesses.

Until the fall of the Berlin wall and the increasingly costly integration of Eastern Germany, many had assumed that the economy of the Federal Republic of Germany would loom over the other nations of the Community. But now, despite recession and currency problems, other European countries such as Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom and France are somewhat healthier as European integration proceeds. The transformation of French business is one of the surprises in the post-Maastricht era.

The reputation of French companies as global competitors has been poor. Analysts and observers cite familiar reasons why: French companies tend to be state controlled, inwardly focused and more concerned with maintaining employment levels than with profitability. Like most widely held views, such opinions rest on empirical observations. In this case, however, the observations are historical rather than contemporary. International competition is breaking down the remaining particularisms of French business practices as many French companies are joining the ranks of global players. Behaviors once considered typical of French managers and companies are being replaced by more systematic management practices.

Years ago, Stanley Hoffmann observed that traditional French management was characterized by a peculiar French pattern of authority which isolated different social strata, and inhibited face-to-face relations.1

“The basic motivation of business was social rather than economic: to ensure the continuity of the family and its social predominance rather than to produce the greatest amount of goods.”2 According to another observer, French management was “patrimonial by heritage, static by virtue of an acquired protected position, conservative in social outlook, and restrictive in commercial policy.”3

In recent decades and in an increasing variety of businesses, traditional French management has been tested and found wanting. In an environment in which French producers compete against foreign-based companies with lower costs and higher quality goods and services—themselves the result of lower manpower levels, higher productivity, and better internal and external information flows—traditional French ways of organizing and conducting business are untenable.

In today’s France, company after company is recognizing the need to adapt its practices to the forces of international competition. For example, under Roger Fauroux—Minister of Industry—Saint-Gobain was profitable at home and abroad; its president, Jean-Louis Beffa, continued the trend by leading an aggressive campaign of world expansion which has earned him a reputation as a tough negotiator. The French cement company, Lafarge, also expanded abroad—Lafarge is consolidating many of the fragmented American cement companies; seeking proper balance between centralization and decentralization, its top management has developed a decentralized network structure to control the myriad of small units.4 Another French company, Schlumberger, is one of the world’s leaders in experimenting with global organization structures

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