Co-construire l’autopoïèse organisationnelle : le Laboratoire Développemental comme modèle et comme moyen de l’intervention capacitante

Abstract

This paper describes a participatory intervention aimed at redesigning an organization in the railway sector. The intervention took place after an attempt at insourcing part of the subway maintenance activity. The techno-centered management of the change resulted in a decrease in organizational reliability and performance. The intervention focused on the sustainability of the organizational development. The entire intervention was conceived as a “Developmental Laboratory” aimed at empowering organizational actors to construct and set in motion autopoietic mechanisms, i.e. mechanisms allowing actors to permanently redesign the organization to suit activity requirements. The constructive dimension of the activity is taken as a lever for organizational development. A post-hoc reflexive analysis reveals the conditions of such a developmental intervention strategy and the multiple roles played by the ergonomist as an organizational change manager.

Keywords

• enabling intervention
• developmental laboratory
• organizational autopoiesis
• participatory redesign or processes