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Scholars use the analogy of orchestration to study how heterogeneous organizational actors collaborate and manage the resulting ecosystems. However, as scholars applied the analogy to capture activities in various types of ecosystems, the analogy gelled into a concept that glosses over crucial differences in ecosystem purposes. To disentangle the concept of orchestration, we conduct a systematic literature review that takes stock and accounts for ecosystem diversity. Our analysis revealed that scholars conflate two different conceptions of orchestration when studying ecosystems. The first conception implies a single orchestrator that maximizes value for itself, using directive governance mechanisms, and sustaining its ecosystem through resource management, dynamic capabilities, and staged ecosystem development. It represents the dominant conception of ecosystem management. The second conception, nascent and growing, implies multiple actors involved in inviting and attracting collaborations to create shared value for internal and external ecosystem actors, sustaining their ecosystem through legitimization, government support, and a vision of the common good, for example, to improve environmental sustainability, innovate in disability care, or develop community solutions. Orchestration is a limiting concept for studying the latter type of ecosystems, and we propose using the musical metaphor of ‘ensemble’ instead We compare and discuss the two concepts to disentangle orchestration and further ecosystem studies and theory.

International audience; This book is about mathematics in the management of innovation, showing how recent advances in mathematics help us grasp and support innovation as a social activity of thinking and imagining together. It will make the reader rethink both innovation and mathematics by having them interplay in practical organizational settings.Told as fiction to make its argument more accessible, the book is nonetheless grounded in theoretical reflections and recent mathematical advances. In recounting the adventures of a committed and enthusiastic inventor-designer hampered by the increasing industrial bureaucratization of his world, it accounts for the fate of many innovation processes in large companies and administrations.Successful innovation hinges on having everyone involved in the process share a space of conceptual exploration. This philosophical aspect of the innovation process is about collective imagination, a notion that customary styles of thought have great difficulty dealing with. This is where mathematics, of a new kind, might prove to be a new platform for better management of innovation.

This book is about mathematics in the management of innovation, showing how recent advances in mathematics help us grasp and support innovation as a social activity of thinking and imagining together. It will make the reader rethink both innovation and mathematics by having them interplay in practical organizational settings.Told as fiction to make its argument more accessible, the book is nonetheless grounded in theoretical reflections and recent mathematical advances. In recounting the adventures of a committed and enthusiastic inventor-designer hampered by the increasing industrial bureaucratization of his world, it accounts for the fate of many innovation processes in large companies and administrations.Successful innovation hinges on having everyone involved in the process share a space of conceptual exploration. This philosophical aspect of the innovation process is about collective imagination, a notion that customary styles of thought have great difficulty dealing with. This is where mathematics, of a new kind, might prove to be a new platform for better management of innovation.

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International audience; The purpose of this chapter is to present the challenges of an “integrative” approach to the maturation of concepts in the field of connected healthcare. The word “integrative”, meaning an approach considering the multiplicity of an innovation situation without belittling it, therefore the organization of third parties’ conception and imagination efforts does not reduce the multiplicity of their own knowledge, experiences and temporalities. After having recalled the strategic nature of concept maturation activities, the article draws on a case from another sector, the space sector, to draw lines of work in the field on connected healthcare.

The purpose of this chapter is to present the challenges of an “integrative” approach to the maturation of concepts in the field of connected healthcare. The word “integrative”, meaning an approach considering the multiplicity of an innovation situation without belittling it, therefore the organization of third parties’ conception and imagination efforts does not reduce the multiplicity of their own knowledge, experiences and temporalities. After having recalled the strategic nature of concept maturation activities, the article draws on a case from another sector, the space sector, to draw lines of work in the field on connected healthcare.

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International audience; The search for breakthrough innovation leads many organizations to transform their work processes in depth. These evolutions generate new collaborative work patterns which often turn out to be sources of conflict in practice. Building on the case of the new “labs” (Fab Labs, Living Labs, Open Labs, etc.), the article explore the limitations of existing legal regimes for open and collaborative innovation and make suggestions to further conceive law intervention throughout the different phases of generation, development and exploitation of an innovation.; La recherche d’innovations de rupture conduit les organisations à transformer leurs modes de travail profondément. Ces évolutions créent des situations de collaboration inédites qui deviennent souvent source de conflits en pratique. S’appuyant sur le cas des « labs » ( FabLabs , Living Labs , Open Labs , etc.), l’article explore les limites des régimes juridiques existants pour les formes d’innovation ouverte et collaborative et propose des pistes pour penser une intervention adaptée du droit selon les phases de genèse, développement et exploitation d’une innovation.

International audience; In several industries, competitive and societal factors have highlighted the need for incubating dedicated radical innovation (RI) capabilities. Traditional approaches to RI strategies have often emphasised either organisational or cognitive aspects, but tend to overlook how these dimensions interact within the organisation. This paper tackles the issue of these interplays by investigating the effects of a creativity-based collaborative method, the KCP Workshops, on the RI capability of a firm. We present an in-depth case study of a leading aeronautics firm that adopted the method to face its RI challenges. While being consistent with prior research and underscoring the impact of organisational settings on creative cognitive processes, our analysis empirically demonstrates a triple capability developed through the KCP Workshops: (1) collectively building a conceivable RI strategy, (2) deploying a monitoring process adapted to the exploration of cognitive breakthroughs, (3) collectively building “emerging creative organisations” at the ecosystem level to support the development of RI strategy. Beyond the performance of the RI capability for commercial applications, these findings underline how the collective design of an RI strategy also involves players in the exploration and establishment of organisational innovations.

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Domain-independent design theories grounded on formal frameworks are of interest for a wide spectrum ofprofessional and academic fields, including design education, design management and innovation strategy. While muchattention has been paid to the modeling of the specification process of an artifact, less attention has been paid to themodeling of the creative social interactions involved in the process of designing. There is still a need for conceptualapproaches that could further integrate the creative,collective, cognitive and emotional aspects of design. This paperaims to develop such an integrative view by relying on the Memory Evolutive Systems (MES;A. C. Ehresmann andVanbremeersch 2007). Based on a conceptual mathematical domain named "Category Theory",MES provide arelational approach for studying evolutionary, multi-scale, multi-temporality and self-organized systems. Using the MESapproach, we develop a conceptual framework which encompasses the various phases of a design process and considershow it is directed by the multiple mental and social interactions between different actors. Our approach, named D-MES,extends prior research by providing a formal account of how various entities can operate in parallel to develop creativecombinations of new shared objects and processes of different levels of complexity throughout the design process. Anillustration is provided in the case of garden design.

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International audience; Current debates in design question the effects of " fixation. " On the one hand, to be creative, designers should avoid fixing the meaning of objects or proposals, On the other hand, positive effects of fixation have also been observed in various design practices. For instance, " early fixation " or " early crystallization " have been conceptualized as ways that significantly help starting the design work without limiting its creative potential. To understand these contrasting positions, we take a semiotic perspective on the phenomenon of fixation. Peirce's triadic model of sign (representamen, object, interpretant), defines meaning making as an infinite process through the " interpretant " based on personal and social experience. Fixation is therefore a basic semiotic condition through which human beings make sense of the world. As pointed by Peirce, the " final " interpretant is the way by which we can actually communicate meaning to further expand it. Following on this model and the Peircean categories (firstness, secondness, thirdness) we identify three different ways in design that structure how meaning making can be stabilized, e.g.: the feeling of some potential (firstness); the combination of events or things (secondness); the establishment of a belief, habit or law (thirdness).

Proceedings are available online at http://www.euram2013.com (authentification requested); International audience; In a period of economic and legitimacy crises for firms, there is a current appeal on alternative firms to the conventional capitalist and hierarchical one, especially ones with a democratic form such as cooperatives. But for a long time the "degeneration" pattern of democratic firms, namely their economic failure or the abandonment of democratic functioning, has been pointed out. Even if such a deterministic rationale has been contested, the main difficulty for democratic firms remains their capacity to overcome degeneration crises. This paper investigates this question through the case of a 400-member democratic professional service firm, studied during three years with an intervention research method. It shows how such a firm designed organizational outcomes to a twofold crisis of performance and governance. It contributes to a better understanding of the conditions of sustainability of democratic firms by emphasizing the possibility of designing new models of cooperation, which integrate various constraints and do not compromise between antagonist logics within the firm.

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International audience; Purpose of the paperIt is now well accepted that firms’ development not only depends on their individual assets, but also on the ones of many other interdependent companies (e.g. :suppliers, customers, complementors). This seems especially true in innovative sectors where firms have for long paid attention to the collective need for preparing industry for the future. Recently the term “ecosystem” has been introduced to characterize further the dynamics of such industries (Iansiti and Levien 2004). However strategies led by individual firms to prepare industry ecosystem for the future still often only rely on “maintaining health” and do not address the question of major evolutions. In such context, an important issue is therefore: how to organize the collective exploration of alternative industry ecosystems? This paper aims at filling this research gap through the in-depth case study of CNES , the French spatial agency.Theoretical backgroundA growing body of research has shown how organizations may influence the evolution of an industry ecosystem. Research on industry architectures has contributed to explaining how organizations attempt to manipulate the way work is divided among industry participants and its impact on value creation and value appropriation (Jacobides, Knudsen et al. 2006). Companies develop strategies to get an « architectural advantage » (Ferraro and Gurses 2009) and become « focal firms » (Adner and Kapoor 2010) in the industry ecosystem. Research on industry platforms has demonstrated that platform leaders not only develop technologies but also stimulate the renewal of the whole industry ecosystem (Gawer and Cusumano 2002; Gawer and Cusumano 2008) thanks to the cooperation of new entrants or complementors which seek to create niches and to differentiate their products in innovative ways (Iansiti and Levien 2004). The concept of “industry platform” thus provides an interesting conceptual tool to further understand the industry ecosystems dynamics. However, although the issue of preparing for the future has become of strategic importance in many industries, the ways in which to collectively explore and design new industry ecosystems are still limited.Research methodsWe draw on extensive qualitative data collected during a one-year collaborative research (David and Hatchuel 2007) with CNES and which included several visits in its three French sites (Paris, Evry and Toulouse). The collaborative research started during winter 2009. Thanks to exploratory interviews which were primarily carried out with top-managers, the first phase made it possible to specify the scope of the study. Since the overarching research objectives were to analyze how CNES was preparing its industry ecosystem for the future, we collectively discussed various projects to be analyzed in details. We eventually decided to select examples of both past successes (atmospheric sounding and radar altimetry) and current challenges (hereafter named “DemoLaunch”) in CNES’ recent history. We then identified the key actors that would be interviewed to sustain our research objectives and triangulate data collection. 24 semi-structured interviews (8 interviews on each topic) were eventually organized over the next six months. The semi-structured interviews lasted, on average, 2 hours and all of them were carried out face to face but one, which was organized via videoconference. While including general questions about interviewees’ background and position in the CNES organization, our interviews mainly focused on interviewees’ participation to the selected projects.Empirical base CNES is the French spatial agency. It is a public organization, administratively defined as a “public administration with industrial and commercial purpose”. Its mission is to coordinate and implement French spatial policy through the financing of industrial R&D projects, which aim at bringing space technologies to maturity, and the developing of innovative concepts, which aim at preparing the future of space industry. Because of major scientific and technological challenges which have historically induced firms to collaborate intensively over uncommonly long times, one of the specificities of the spatial industry is thus to tightly interconnect various actors ranging from private companies to research institutes and spatial agencies, such as CNES. This has led space actors to invent efficient strategies in which to develop and maintain current space industry ecosystem healthy. Still, according to CNES’ senior managers, space actors are currently facing new issues due to new competitors coming from different industries (e.g.: Virgin Galactic and space tourism) or emerging countries (e.g.: China, India). Well aware of these difficulties, CNES was already attempting to organize such collective efforts when the collaborative research started. The case study of CNES thus gave us a rare opportunity to analyse how to collectively prepare industry ecosystem for the future.Results and managerial implicationsDrawing on our findings, we demonstrate that traditional strategies are now limited to cope with the challenges that are currently faced by space actors and which could threaten the whole industry ecosystem in the next future. Our findings provide documented examples of old and new strategies carried out by CNES to manage its industry ecosystem. Likewise, our findings provide an empirical based account on how an organization facing major evolutions threats can prepare for the future beyond “maintaining” strategies. As a result, the scope of our study, which specifically includes the analysis of front end design processes, suggests new directions for managers as well as policy makers in order to develop new tools and methods to sustain the collective exploration of new industry ecosystems.

International audience; Lately, “conventional” firms have been roughly criticized for both the legitimacy of shareholder value and the production of negative externalities that affect society. In the crisis context, “alternative” firms are often presented as candidates to design renewed organizations. However, there is a high risk of arousing as much initial enthusiasm as following disillusion. In this paper, we address the issue of the organizational dynamics of such corporate projects over time. After a (brief) historical overview of alternative firms, we discuss the limitations of dominant approach which sustains the “degeneration thesis.” We then elaborate a new analytical framework that raises the issues of alternative firms in another fashion to go beyond traditional tradeoffs between democratic functioning and financial performance. The framework is then used to longitudinally analyze the story of Garden Concept, an alternative firm operating in artistic gardening, over seven years. Our findings show how the building of dynamic relations between members, common purpose and organizational devices are at the heart of the alternative firm’s project. So doing, we explore a larger redefinition of these three elements and depart from a close association of “alternative” project to strict democracy. Contributions to “alternative firms” as well as research perspectives on professional and artistic organizations are eventually considered.

International audience; Contemporary firms compete ever more on creative and innovative capabilities. In this competition, previous research has outlined the strategic role of employees’ competencies and “human capital”. Still, while being potential valuable creative employees, artists paradoxically hardly find their place in business enterprises. Many reasons have been put forward to explain this paradox but the role played by law has rarely been analyzed. This paper aims at filling this research gap. We argue that neither the legal status of “employee”, nor the “author’s rights” system are satisfying to specify the position of an artist in a business organization.Drawing on the results of a longitudinal case study of an art-based firm, we contend that the legal status of an “employee” does not capture an essential role of the firm, which lies in the collective building of individual “potentials”. Yet, the notion of potential is essential to understand how a firm can contribute to extending the capacities of an artist. Since such contribution goes beyond the payment of wages or copyrights, it thus appears that the artistic activity is not only compatible with a firm project, but may also be actively supported by the collective action of the firm. We further argue that law can foster such development of creative firms, in particular by introducing new norms and new corporate standards. These corporate standards can indeed play the role of both cognitive frameworks and instruments to facilitate joint and unbiased agreements among parties. We then conclude with some legal implications of these assertions.

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International audience; In this paper, we present a longitudinal single case study of a firm operating in artistic gardening, in which we examine an original process of co-generation between artistic and managerial practices. Our findings highlight the need of a design-based perspective to solve specific organizational crises that do not belong to the traditional issues of arts administration. Building on evidence from our research, we develop theoretical insights for understanding a design-based management of the art-based firms.

International audience; Dans cet article, nous présentons une étude qualitative longitudinale d’une entreprise qui opère dans la création de jardins artistiques. L’analyse de la genèse puis de la croissance de cette entreprise révèle l’existence d’un processus original de « co-génération » entre les pratiques artistiques et les pratiques managériales. Les résultats de cette recherche empirique mettent en lumière l’apparition de questions managériales spécifiques et jusqu’ici laissées de côté par la littérature classique en « gestion des arts ». En effet, les recherches passées ont négligé l’étude des fonctions de conception de la firme artistique et le modèle managérial traditionnel qui en a découlé repose sur une théorie avant tout administrative de la « gestion des arts » et sur une conceptualisation de « liens faibles » entre artistes et managers, souvent ramener à une « cohabitation ». Or, d’une part, les fonctions de conception sont cruciales dans ce type d’univers et ne peuvent pas être uniquement administrées à partir des grilles classiques du management industriel. Et d’autre part, l’étude des fonctions de conception révèlent un type inédit de « liens forts » entre pratiques artistiques et managériales qui suggèrent un modèle de la « co-génération ». Nos résultats confirment donc la nécessité d’une nouvelle perspective qui s’ouvre à l'examen des activités de conception artistiques. Sur la base de ce constat empirique et à partir des éléments de terrain observés, nous développons ensuite des arguments théoriques en faveur d’un management « conceptif ». Une théorie des formes de symbolisation nous permet de saisir la nature des « langages de l’art » (Goodman 1990) ainsi que la « manière de faire des mondes » (Goodman 1992) dans ces univers. Puis nous établissons la potentielle contribution d’une théorie de la conception (Hatchuel 1996; Hatchuel et Weil 2002) à la compréhension de la gestion des entreprises artistiques. Nous concluons sur des recommandations pour des recherches futures.

International audience; The tension towards management functions is all the more fundamental in Democratic Member-owned Firms (DMFs), such as co-operatives, as this kind of firm has developed against the ‘conventional’ managerial hierarchy. What show degenerations of DMFs, be it for a business failure or a democratic withdrawal, is the very issue of designing adapted management functions in such firms. This implies to go further than current approaches which mainly rest on ‘conventional’ approaches of management functions. We investigate this issue through in-depth and longitudinal case-studies in two DMFs confronted with the need for transforming their management functions. New perspectives on the management of DMFs emerge from the case-studies. Particularly, linking the design of management functions with correlated “spaces of participation” appears as a way to generate dynamic collective learnings for the business activity management and also to ‘regenerate’ the democratic functioning. We contribute to its theorization, showing the need of an ‘integrative’ and ‘expansive’ vision of management to avoid irreversible degeneration. This also opens new ways to grasp the management issue of linking employee ownership and participation.

International audience; There has been a growing interest in the field of “arts management” and the extensive literature has helped to develop models for managing arts organizations. These models may be summarized in what is called the model of “Arts Administration”. Indeed scholars have basically investigated established “art worlds”, considering that art referred to a “given field”, and have then appointed the manager to administer it. In this paper we focus on emerging “art worlds” since they have been disregarded by the traditional literature on arts management. As recent works demonstrate it, when art can hardly be considered as a “given field”, the role of the manager cannot be reduced to traditional “administration”. Drawing on these premises, we suggest a design-based model to conceptualize the deep links between art and management in emerging “art worlds”. To validate it, we investigate an in-depth and longitudinal single case study of a firm operating in the field of artistic gardening. A new agenda for the managers of art-based firms comes out from the case study. It suggests rethinking the collaboration between artist and manager no longer as “cohabitation” but also as “co-generation”.