I am a professor-researcher at Audencia and a member of Grace. I work in law, management and ethics on issues related to the common good and meaningful work.
https://faculte-recherche.audencia.com/cvs/cv/sandrine-fremeaux/
https://www.grace-recherche.fr/equipe/sandrine-fremeaux/
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01337242/
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My roots
I rely on a broad and non-restrictive anthropology, combining the two human facets of homo donator and homo reciprocus, without reducing the human being to an individual whose only joy would be to give freely or a purely calculating individual, self-interested and motivated by the lure of gain. Both homo donator and homo reciprocus, the human being needs to make free gifts and exchanges.
More and more scholars observe that gratuitousness is a factor of exchange and generalized reciprocity (A gives to B, B gives to C...). In other words, the paradox can be stated as follows: the more one tends towards gratuity, the more one tends towards generalized reciprocity.
Thus, it is possible to talk about the effectiveness of the gratuitous gift without distorting it. The gratuitous gift would be effective, simply because it would be truly turned towards the other. Indeed, if the individual focuses on what he or she gives, or on the other, he or she can give beyond what is usual or predictable to give and obtain unexpected results.
Thus, people need to give in order to participate in the common good and to give meaning to their work and their life.
https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00797037/
In my role as a teacher, I am aware of the difficulties inherent in training future managers. exposed from an early age to the race for academic excellence, sometimes even reinforced by the elitism of certain training courses, our students may be led to pay attention to what makes their curriculum vitae worthwhile; this is then seen as an extension of the school report card. Independently of their personal aspirations, extracurricular skills, interests and values, they tend to give priority to areas of excellence and justify their choice of training and internships solely on the basis of the prestige of partner institutions and companies. The key word becomes professional success, i.e. the material or symbolic “asset” represented by good grades, then diplomas, then the enrichment of the curriculum vitae, then career development. Meaning is forgotten, denied, sometimes ridiculed, and as Blaise Pascal expressed it: “we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so” (Thoughts, 1670).
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If we teach future managers who are entering a university or school that they will have the job of coordinating individual actions with a view to contributing to the economic performance of their organization, they may never grasp the meaning of their lives, nor that of their employees. It seems that students find it difficult to see management as a profession as such.
Yet it may be that management is precisely a profession that gives the opportunity to experience the different dimensions of the common good and meaning : indeed, it is only possible to help one's employees to give meaning to their work on the condition that one has opened oneself up to the different dimensions of the common good and meaning.
Concretely, how can training help students to seek the common good and meaning? To answer this question, we put into perspective the philosophical requirements suggested by Platonist and Aristotelian Greek philosophy (that is, respect for rules, dialectics, imitation and deliberation) and the structural barriers evident in the contemporary business school context (hegemony of instrumental theories, disciplinary compartmentalization, hegemony of educational technologies, and academism or professionalization excesses). We suggest certain structural conditions to advance ethical training.
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Firstly, defined by Plato and Aristotle as crucial for the acquisition of virtue, it is argued that respect for the legal rules is considered an integral part of ethical training. In addition to the emphasis on law courses, ethical training presupposes that respect for law is not undermined in other courses by a tendency to circumvent legislation as a principle of action. It implies that as a group the teachers-instructors are all aware of the role of the law as an essential intermediary order between the economic and ethical worlds. This regard for law does not lead to advocating a blind obedience to current laws and to supporting a legal positivism. Rooted in an ethical reflection implying prudence and practical wisdom, knowledge of law actually means paying attention to ethical and moral values which may underlie legal rules and developing an ability to question law, and even to disobey it in cases where these values have been violated.
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Secondly, the three other orientations – dialectics, imitation and deliberation – can be stimulated by the development of cultural or ethical transversal teachings. Instruction in the humanities and social sciences such as philosophy, psychology, sociology, anthropology and history can all provide an important cultural horizon that helps the future manager appreciate and embrace the reflective process. Courses in business ethics, business and society, or corporate social responsibility can help to question the ethical criteria of decisions that every manager makes in their professional life, provided they are offered in a deliberative and interdisciplinary fashion.
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We suggest a clear pedagogical protocol for all courses in business schools that can be divided into the following four steps:
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1) Clarification of the pedagogical objectives at the beginning of the course (i.e. exemplary clarity of the teacher; coherence between the announced and implemented pedagogical rules; meeting with the teacher-instructor prior to any implementation of educational technologies).
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2) Choice of theoretical content based more broadly on areas other than exclusively instrumental theories (i.e. confrontation between instrumental and non-instrumental theories; reference to law in all disciplines; learning law as an ethical reference and not merely as an economic tool or a constraint).
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3) Choice of models of conduct (i.e. choice of exemplary ethical behavior; choice of humanistic or meaningful organizations).
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4) Complex and realistic case studies (i.e. questioning the different aspects of a problem by mobilizing a variety of disciplines; questioning the ends and the means when confronted with a dilemma).
Pedagogy
Research
As a researcher, I am also interested in the opportunities we have to carry out virtuous actions in an environment characterized by the growing influence of the publish or perish regime. We interviewed researchers working in different institutions and emphasized six non-mutually exclusive ways through which we can act virtuously within and beyond the publication system : taking the time to do quality work, developing a personal vision, becoming an expert on a specific issue, developing a parallel scientific activity, disseminating results beyond the publication system, and being involved in a research community. I believe that we can be fulfilled in a research activity despite the reduction of our freedom.
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https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-020-04434-3
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