The world changes. Private and public organisations too.

Even if this observation is not so surprising the acceleration and importance of economic, technological and socio-cultural change today calls for, more than at any other time before, a reflection on the organisations of tomorrow and the future of management.

Even nowadays, businesses define themselves with regard to inherited nineteenth century and first-half twentieth-century industrial logic. Key words resonate around material assets, of efficiency, of competition, of productivity and of standardisation which have defined the management practiced today. This spirit and these practices, and their very bases, are being put into question.

Public institutions, having taken a different path, based on the notion of public service and on the absence of competition and of a guarantee of durability, are also being questioned.

In effect, if organisations, businesses and institutions occupy a growing place in the life of citizens, of communities and of societies, their purposes, their roles, their needs and their frontiers are increasingly subject to question.

The context of – markets, laws, regulations, cultures, etc – evolve in an accelerated and unforeseeable way. New preoccupations emerge around themes of value and of sharing of knowledge, of the environment, of social responsibility, of identity, of diversity…

New types of relationship, of consumption and of regulation are also surfacing, immaterial and interactive, often more intense and immediate but also operating at a distance supported by technologies that can now be qualified as “social”.

The strategies and operations of private organisations and public institutions must integrate greater flexibility, cease redefining themselves and adapt themselves increasingly to the evolution of the world around them.

In this framework, it is important to reflect upon our organisations differently.

On these premises, we propose a reflection around 4 themes:

1) What leadership for organisations of tomorrow? Which strategies will eventually allow them to master missions always moving, richer and more ambitious, adapting them to the changing demands of clients and markets?

2) What types of action, of representation and of management, can usefully and efficiently integrate information technologies in exploiting their vertues and moderating their effects albeit sometimes counter-productive?

3) How do we open our organisations to major input from communities of practice, of knowledge and of creation, which today appear as powerful vectors of organisational training, of innovation and of economic and social development?

4) How do we pilot our organisations in ways that mobilise the creative capacity of each person, from the interior and beyond the frontiers of the organisation, for management which is organic but also more reflective and more apt at revealing in a continuous way new challenges of time?

For the Colloquy, we privilege the spirit of meeting, exchanging, of experience and exploration between different types of institutions and private and public organisations, but also between managers, researchers, students and citizens who are curious about the future of management and of organisations.

This Colloquy will also be an important occasion for VOIRIN Consultants.

VOIRIN Consultants, an office originating from Strasbourg dealing with management and information systems, with branches in Paris, Lyon and Mopntreal, will celebrate its 30th anniversary in March 2010. This important occasion will allow Voirin to project itself and its consultants forward.

Francis DANGEL, Lee HIBBARD (Conseil de l’Europe/Council of Europe), Laurent SIMON (HEC Montréal), Frédéric CREPLET (VOIRIN Consultants et Faculté Economie Gestion Strasbourg / BETA), Francis KERN, Francis MUNIER (Faculté Economie Gestion Strasbourg / BETA).

To consult the programme, click here.

To register : 250 Euro registration fee is required for persons not belonging to one of the partner organisations. This includes 2 lunches as well as participation in the entire Colloquy. Access the registration form by clicking here