Research Interest

Topics

Biography

Hervé Laroche is Professor in the Department of Strategy, Organizational Behaviour and Human Resources at the ESCP Europe Paris Campus. A graduate of HEC, he holds a Doctorate in Management Science. He was Associate Dean for Research (1994-1998). He is currently Director of the Ph.D. programme in Paris.

From first studying strategic decision processes, he developed three streams of research. First, he researched how cognitive processes and knowledge structures influence strategy formation, with particular attention to the structuring of strategic issues and the strategic agenda. Trying to account for accidents and failures, he then became interested in issues of organizational reliability and decision-making in the face of risks. He also investigated the contribution of middle managers to the conduct of action in organizations. On these topics he developed teachings and published or co-published articles in various journals (Organization Science, MIT Sloan Management Review, Organization Studies, Journal of Risk Research, etc.). He has published several books (Moi manager, Repenser la stratégie) and chapters in edited books.

He was a president of the AIMS (Association Internationale de Management Stratégique – the French-speaking academic society in the field of strategic management) from 2003 to 2006 and Editor in Chief of the European Management Journal (2006-2012).

Current research

Responsibility and blame attribution processes following accidents and crises, through the analysis of post crisis inquiry reports.
More specifically, attributing responsibility to organizations raises puzzling issues because organizations cannot be equalled with their members; therefore, responsibility is attributed either to specific members (e.g. operators versus top management) or to impersonal, bureaucratic processes. This leads to questioning the “theories” of organizations and of management that underpin the sensemaking processes behind responsibility attribution.

Upward management strategies by managers, including justifications and impression management.
Managers face issues of accountability within a context of internal ambiguity. They anticipate on the judgments that their bosses may have about their action and about themselves. They incorporate these judgments into the conduct of their action. Finally, they try to influence the judgments by producing explanations and justifications of their action.

Managerial attention processes.
Attention is a key resource for managers. In addition to paying attention to their environment and to the inner workings of the organization, managers are in charge of building, maintaining and monitoring mindfulness inside their unit. This means they direct their attention to their subordinates’ attention processes. In other words, this research explores the idea of managers as managers of attention (their own and their subordinates’).

Boredom and humour in the workplace.
Building on an analysis of three versions of the popular BBC series “The Office”, this research explores how boredom at work is experienced and expressed in various cultural contexts.

Publications