Research Interest

Topics

Biography

Patrick Besson holds a degree in Economics, a Doctorate in Management Science and a post-doctoral degree (HDR). He is a professor of Organization and Leadership at ESCP Europe. He teaches Organization and Project Leadership in the school’s Master course, as well as Organizational Change and Leadership in the EMBA and executive education programmes.
Professor Besson started his career, and worked for 5 years (1980-1985), as a member of a CNRS research team specialized in the economics of technological changes (ERA 872, Université Lyon II). He then joined the CERTES (Centre d’Études et de Recherche Technique et Société) at the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (1985-1990) where he undertook research and teaching assignments (industrial organization). Between 1990 and 1994 he held an executive position at Bull in charge of a worldwide change management project. In 1994 he joined ESCP Europe.
His current research focuses primarily on the study of top management teams and their impact on strategizing. Professor Besson is also an active consultant specializing in the coaching of top executives.

Current research

Strategizing: TMT at work
TMT scholars have explored the relationship between corporate performance, TMT composition and incentive systems. The relationship between the organisational arrangements in which the TMT works, its modes of operation and the impact on strategizing have been far less researched. To achieve research results on TMT at work I favour a discursive approach focusing on the study of dialogue processes (called “learning controversies”) and on the organisational arrangements in which these processes unfold. Moreover, to contextualize my research, I study specific strategizing situations such as the conduct of a turnaround, a merger or the transformation of a business model, and I give special attention to international comparisons, developing case studies in Europe and the Asia-Pacific area.

Constructing ordinary strategist
Ever since the 1990s, there has been general agreement that to improve organisational governance, both the relationship between corporate and operational entities, on the one hand, and functional experts and operational managers, on the other, need to be reshaped. A more subtle interaction between the global and local levels of strategic action has replaced the more traditional decentralisation dilemma. Middle management, a key actor in this interaction, has become the focus of attention. Redefining its stance towards the strategic process is crucial. Imprisoned in their exercise of operational authority, overwhelmed by restructuring initiatives and subsumed in quality procedures and process re-engineering drives, how can managers cope with these new situations? More than the acquisition of new competencies, what is now at stake is the construction of new roles and identities. Research has established middle management’s importance to the strategic process. However one question remains largely unexplored and it constitutes the focus of my current research – to wit, how can the roles and identities in question actually be transformed? In other words, how does one manufacture the strategic stance that middle managers are now expected to adopt?

Publications