Work and People

The reprint of Henri Savall's classic Work and People, originally published in French in 1974, is part of Research in Management Consulting series' effort to look backward as well as forward in examining trends, perspectives, and insights_especially from different countries and cultures-in world of management consulting. Savall's insights into complexity of organizational life were groundbreaking, articulating need to examine both economic and social factors as part of same analysis, assessing technical and behavioral patterns through lens of an integrated framework. As he has argued, there is a double-loop interaction between the quality of functioning and economic performance, and underestimating this socio-economic tension leads inevitably to reduced performance and losses, which he refers to as hidden costs. This approach, referred to as socio-economic approach to management (SEAM), has significant potential for our thinking about organizational diagnosis and intervention. As Savall emphasizes, North American tendency to cast people as human resources misses essential point that human beings cannot be considered as simply another resource at organization's disposal. People are free to give or withhold their energy as they desire, depending on quality of formal and informal contracts and interactions they have with their organizations. As such, SEAM approach focuses on human potential, underscoring need for managers and their organizations to create conditions under which people will want to maximize their talents on behalf of organization

Business · Economics · Job design · Job enrichment · Job performance · Job satisfaction · Labour economics · Work (physics · Economic Development and Digital Transformation · Economic Theory and Institutions · Engineering · Management, Economics, and Public Policy · Psychology · Social Psychology

• The Significance of the Work‐place for Adult Education

  Karl Mackie•International Journal of Lifelong…•1983

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• Toward a Theory for the Evaluation of Organizational Change

  Open Access•C A Carnall, Colin Carnall•Human Relations•1986

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