La logique de l'informel (in french)

This book provides valuable insights into the informal mechanisms that influence business operations. The author relies on his experience as a consultant and organizational sociologist to explain the unofficial drivers of day-to-day behavior, such as power struggles, emotional factors, etc. The author’s highly conceptual style and liberal use of technical and abstract vocabulary sometimes make for hard reading, but the task is greatly facilitated by the clear and well-formatted layout which underlines concrete examples and employs many graphic illustrations. Chapter 1 offers a valuable introduction, serving as a framework for concepts developed in the latter part of the book. Here, the author develops the metaphor of the manager-as-architect, whose blind trust in formal drivers can be problematic. Chapter 5 proposes a detailed description of these drivers. The main concepts used to identify informal organizational practices can be found in chapters 3 and 6, e.g., limited rationality, areas of uncertainty, identity, anticipation models, etc. In our view, these sections are a must-read and constitute the heart of the book.