Management as we know it today has its origins in the organizational upheavals of the 20th century. Faced with the rise of industrial empires and concerns about their negative externalities, figures such as Frederick Taylor and Henri Fayol laid the foundations for scientific management and administrative principles. These theories, designed to optimize work and structure companies, shaped the first generations of managers, called upon to forecast, organize, command, coordinate and control. However, as the century progressed, new functions emerged - safety management, representation, communication - broadening the spectrum of managerial responsibilities and confronting theory with the complex realities of the field.
While the great theories of management remain valid as the foundations of the social sciences, their transmission and application have often been distorted by custom, academic institutions and the ideas industry. Authors such as Kurt Lewin, Maslow or even Taylor have seen their work simplified or caricatured, while the accumulation of scientific articles and the appearance of frameworks promoted by consultants or thought leaders have contributed to a blurring of reference points. This phenomenon, combined with the inflation of prescriptive managerial discourse, raises a fundamental question: can management still produce conceptual advances, or are we condemned to reinterpreting the same principles in new guises?
Today, the rise of horizontal organizations and collaborative practices is calling into question the role of the manager.Between criticism of hierarchical authority, aspirations to participative democracy and the challenges of diverse leadership styles, the manager must juggle economic performance and social satisfaction.Far from being a mere process executor or charismatic leader, the manager is first and foremost a player in the collective equilibrium. Inspired by the work of Goffman, this conference will examine management as social performance: a role both constructed and contested, anchored in a changing organizational scene.As technology, globalization and individual aspirations reshape the contours of work, this exploration will aim to reassess what it means to “take care” in a 21st-century company.