La dynamique des changements à long terme

This article examines the organizational dynamics of French manufacturing firms over a period of nearly twenty years (1988-2006). The authors draw on three waves of an employer-level statistical survey based on representative samples of over 2,000 firms with 50 employees or more. The objective is two-fold: to find out how changes can be measured consistently and relevantly at several dates, and to gain insight on organizational changes in the long term. Changes are measured in three different ways, that is, in terms of: the diffusion of management tools and information technologies; the transformation of organizational structures; and the evolution of synthetic indicators. The results show first a distinct deceleration of the dynamics of change in manufacturing firms at the turn of the millennium, compared to the 1990s. Secondly, firms' capacity to absorb new managerial tools and to change the parameters of their organizational structure at the beginning of the period seems to have contributed to their longevity. Finally, changes in the use of management tools and in the parameters of organizational structure were slower and more gradual than changes in the use of information technology tools, which tend to be both rapid and irreversible.