MISSIONS & RESEARCH AXIS 

The research carried out by the UNESCO Chair for a Culture of Economic Peace is trans and multidisciplinary, combining management sciences, psychology, medicine, philosophy and other disciplines. They combine field experience and experimentation and focus on three main, closely linked areas : 

• PEACE WITH SELF AND OTHERS

Mindfulness or full consciousness has been at the heart of the chair's work since its creation. Mindfulness refers to self-awareness. It helps develop concentration, attention and acceptance and increases ethical decisions in organizations (Ruedy and Schweitzer 2010; Sevinc and Lazar 2019). Often violent relationships are understood through the distinction between ethical/unethical behavior or the selfish/altruistic couple. However, we can challenge this way of understanding human behavior and human nature with regard to psychological literature. The ethical behaviors observed relate more to self-awareness, when violence seems to be generated by an absence of oneself. Therefore, becoming aware of one's needs, one's environment and one's relationships with others is a key to identifying tensions, sources of violence, and finding ways to repeatedly manage imbalances. Cultivating non-violent communication is also a lever. After having mobilized the NVC on different occasions, current research aims, in the wake of the work of Max-Neef (the inspiration for the NVC), to question the needs of people in a territory and the associated response strategies. 

After questioning your relationship with yourself, others and your needs, you need to appreciate how people and teams learn. We know that managers are often caught in tense situations which can be a source of violence for themselves and for others - this is why a key aspect is to be able to support them, particularly in the face of the changes to be made in terms of leadership to reduce organizational violence and improve well-being at work. This concern explains the fact that the Unesco Chair for a Culture of Economic Peace has brought out different works around coaching and leadership. Some partners have also carried out successful initiatives around servant leadership, i.e. the leader serving his team. Current research aims to understand what makes such training programs work or not. In other words, they allow us to highlight what may be relevant in this type of sustainable support. A model to identify key skills to support the emancipatory possibility of coaching has also been developed. This research is central to understanding how coaching can be a relevant transformation lever for different stakeholders in the company and to understanding how to rediscover the taste for learning.

4 recent key publications :

• Pinelli M., Strub L., Cuny C., Trousselard M., Shankland R., 2023. French teleworkers’ work engagement and job satisfaction during times of lockdown: the protective role of acceptance on stress, Current Psychology : Forthcoming
• Fatien P., Moreau F., Dubern M., Atten B., 2023. Penser l’émancipation dans le coaching, Revue Française de Gestion, 39, 308 : 37-54
• Gisquet E., Duymedjian R., 2022. Coping with chaos at Fukushima Daiichi: Bricolage in and through a space, international Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 81, October : 103224
• Verger Nicolas N., Shankland R., Strub L., Kotsou I., Leys C., Steiler D., 2021. Mindfulness-based programs, perceived stress and well-being at work: The preferential use of informal practices Programmes fondés sur la pleine conscience, stress perçu et bien-être au travail : l’utilisation préférentielle des pratiques informelles, European Review of Applied Psychology, 71, 6 : 100709

• ORGANIZATIONAL PEACE

Although people enjoy autonomy, this is constrained by the framework of the organization. The organization can be a lever to promote altruistic and cooperative behavior or, on the contrary, encourage harmful competitive, domination and exploitation behaviors. Research on organizational peace makes it possible to address the following major questions: how is the relationship with the organization built? What influence does the manager have in the construction of organizational identity? How can he contribute to a peaceful organization? What are the benefits of new management methods and what are the pitfalls? How can we avoid relationships of domination and exclusion and better participate in the inclusion – of women, the most vulnerable, etc. – in organizations ?

These questions are addressed through three sub-axes :

1.Organizational innovations and inclusion :
Rather than exploring the limits of traditional management methods, already very detailed in existing research, we explore here the contributions and pitfalls of managerial innovations and alternatives, namely neo-participative management, new workplaces in companies , new imaginations and alternative organizations. These organizational methods hold the promise of improving the well-being of employees and allowing better consideration of people in the workplace. However, as our work reveals, they can generate new violence: pathologization of negative affects, for example in the case of promoting happiness at work.

2.Organizational socialization :
We conducted an in-depth case study to understand how individuals' careers had evolved over time. We were interested in the process of anticipatory socialization which takes place well before the employee actually enters the company, and even before his decision to apply. We have highlighted the way in which the individual constructs a rewarding image of an organization. It emerges from the interviews that the individual cognitively evaluates the congruence between what they are looking for and what the company offers. There are also social and emotional influences that must be taken into account in the process of evaluating this congruence. As a continuation of this work, we are conducting a study among public hospital caregivers. We are studying the way in which nursing staff worked during the health crisis, the effects of this experience on their relationship to the job they do and their commitment to the public hospital.

3.Ethical leader and organizational identity
We conducted a study within a consulting and training company specializing in the development of managerial skills on its organizational identity. This study showed how the identity of the company had evolved over time and how the founder of the company, now absent, continued to exert influence on the identity work of the members of the organization. This influence appears in two different ways: the old members of the company remain attached to the original identity of the company while the new members would like to make it evolve to adapt to market developments. Added to this are contradictions in the discourse given by the company's managers. These different identity perspectives create tensions among members, either because some employees are nostalgic for the past, or because other employees do not recognize themselves in the new identity proclaimed by the leaders. Furthermore, a case study was carried out in a nursing home concerning organizational identity and the influence that its identity has on the practices of caregivers, their relationship to work and to residents and ultimately, questions related to respect for life and the search for the common good, two key notions for the UNESCO Chair for a culture of economic peace. Generally speaking our studies seek to study the way decision-makers make their decisions and the way they integrate the search for the common good into their decision-making process. This question can be linked to the question of identity (what are my beliefs, my values) and organizational identity (who are we as an organization and what are we doing to achieve the common good.

4 recent key publications : 

• Galois-Faurie I., Barros M., Grima F., 2022. Of "spectres" and "ghosts": transitional and contradictory identifications to the founder's spirit, M@n@gement , 25, 3 : 1-21
• Galois-Faurie I., Grima F., Barros M., 2022. Les dynamiques de la socialisation anticipatoire, Revue de Gestion des Ressources Humaines., 1, 123 : 69-83
• Xavier Léon X., Moreau F., 2022. Le coaching des cadres dirigeants en outplacement : un dispositif paradoxal, Nouvelle revue de psychosociologie, 34, 2 : 171-184
• Daudigeos T., Edwards T., Jaumier S., Pasquier V., Picard H., 2021. Elusive domination and the fate of critique in neo-participative management: a French pragmatist approach, Organization Studies, 42, 3 : 453-471

• INTER-ORGANIZATIONAL AND TERRITORIAL PEACE

Our work around inter-organizational and territorial peace is structured around three sub-axes :

 1. Sustainable well-being and taking into account interdependences
One of the major research projects that feeds into the inter-organizational and territorial peace axis concerns Territorialized Sustainable Well-Being Indicators (IBEST). The Unesco Chair for a Culture of Economic Peace has real expertise on the subject and is linked to an ecosystem of relevant players in the field, in France (Eva Sas law, local experiences, etc.) and internationally (BNB Bhutan, Ecuador, Belgium Brussels, Geneva Switzerland, etc). She is co-founder of the Cap Bien Vivre resource center which provides keys to understanding the issues and deploying this type of approach in a territory or in an organization. This action research project in the Grenoble metropolitan area has in a first stage, established a benchmark for sustainable well-being in partnership with all local stakeholders. This framework has now been adopted as a framework for metropolitan public policy and used for observation and evaluation purposes. Secondly, the approach has been deployed in the department of Isère in economically vulnerable municipalities in Nord-Isère. These are territories where partnership actions with decentralized state services, departments, communities of municipalities and cities are conducted. The challenge of using IBEST here is twofold: to nourish knowledge of the territory at a given time and to evaluate the actions carried out in the territory. Currently, in the city of Grenoble, the IBEST reference system is linked to the donut theory which is now a reference framework for both private and public organizations. With the department of Isère, the commune of Isle d'Abeau more precisely, it is a question of testing a participatory approach in the territory to encourage residents to contribute to the evaluation framework of certain actions carried out in the territory. We are considering the possibility of testing the development of the donut in a more “classic” organization in the future.

 2. The construction of collaborative innovative territorial initiatives
Building a territory of peace requires developing new territorial cooperation. This is what this sub-axis focuses on. A first series of work focused on how stakeholders in a territory can collectively innovate to meet the key needs of the territory. This work linked to the Territory in Transition Chair at Grenoble Ecole de Management made it possible to study in depth the implementation of an outside nursing home in Northern Isère. Such multi-partner innovations are inspiring for identifying other ways of meeting the needs of the territory. This field of reflection joins the initiatives of actors around “territories of peace” carried out in Pays de Loire and at the Tour du Pin.

 3. The transformation of the purchasing function in order to develop a pacified purchasng approach 
The third sub-axis of research places a particular focus on collaborative relationships between customers and suppliers and studies what are the levers for peaceful purchasing. The norm today is still the "cost killer" approach in the purchasing function: how to get out of these violent relationships, tending towards exploitation, to enter into a different mode of relationships more capable of creating long-term value. term ? Different areas of study were adopted and the research made it possible to identify relevant indicators and dashboards to characterize “supplier relations” capital and manage it.

4 recent key publications : 

• Poissonnier H., 2023. La montée en maturité des achats : procure.CH
• Delahais T., Ottaviani F., Berthaud A., Clot H., 2023. Bridging the gap between wellbeing and evaluation: Lessons from IBEST, a French experience, Evaluation and Program Planning, 97, April : 102237
• Le Roy A., Ottaviani F., 2022. The sustainable well-being of urban and rural areas, Regional Studies, 56, 4 : 668-682
• Martin D.-P., Calamel L., Shapira P., Gallejo-Roquelaure V., 2020. Approche(s) territoriale(s) de la GRH et de l’entrepreneuriat : Quels enjeux ? Quels process? Quelles limites, Management International, 24, 6 : 11-12

• SYSTEMIC PEACE

The organization of the economic system is decisive in the occurrence of economic violence. How are the rules of the international game evolving? How are actor relationships changing at this level? Are there areas of autonomy left to States and stakeholders to work for the common good ? Can investment agreements be levers for the common good ?
This sub-axis, structured around two issues, is devoted to the following questions : 

 1. Transformation of international relations
his sub-axis is dedicated to transformations in international relations and is divided into two major fields of work: global economic governance and the China/Middle East relationship. Based on the concept of the political space for development formulated by the CNCUED, the first field studies the level of political autonomy available to the countries of the South to implement a development strategy oriented towards structural transformation. The literature highlights and criticizes the presence of major constraints on the ability of states to define their own economic policies due to supranational neoliberal rules and practices, such as free trade agreements and financing conditionalities imposed by the IMF and the World Bank. . On the other hand, it has completely neglected the study of the effects of China's growing and accelerated involvement in global governance on the political autonomy of Southern countries, knowing that China itself is leading a strategy of structural transformation. The second field of work is based on concepts developed in the field of political geography in order to study how the process of recomposition of the world order could be territorially anchored, by applying this thesis on the China/Middle East relationship. . Firstly, based on analytical concepts from the field of international relations, we study the geoeconomic mutations linked to the change in international integration of the Gulf countries towards a very close relationship with China and its effects on the international monetary system. . Secondly, we adopt an inter-scalar approach to the analysis of the determinants and consequences of the initiative in the Middle East. The objective here is twofold: on the one hand, we are carrying out data collection and analysis work to understand the concrete modalities of the China/Middle East relationship, in particular the examination of partnership modes, modes of ownership and types of actors involved (private and/or public) in three sectors (energy, infrastructure and logistics). Thus, this axis, which articulates the field of economy, geopolitics, geography and law, allows us to see how China is shaking up the international order and expanding the political space for development of the countries of the South.

 2. Regulation and investment agreements
This involves evaluating international investment agreements with regard to their protection and the pursuit of other socio-environmental issues. The empirical analysis was designed to objectively identify major trends in a highly fragmented international legal regime. The results show that sustainability issues are only imperfectly expressed today in international investment agreements. International law is not the best way to ensure that incoming investments contribute to the common good and do not exacerbate problems related to other societal concerns. But, rather, it provides potential solutions to these problems. Other national regulatory instruments may be better placed to achieve these objectives.

4 recent key publications :

• Alshareef S., 2023. A contender state’s multiscalar mediation of transnational capital: the belt and road in the Middle East, New Political Economy : Forthcoming
• Alshareef S., 2023. China’s Insertion in the International Patent Regime: Shaking the Rules Widens the Development Policy Space, Journal of economic issues, 67, 3 : 1018-1035
• Alshareef S., 2023. The Gulf’s Shifting Geo-economy and China’s Structural Power: from the Petrodollar to the Petroyuan?, Competition and Change, 27, 2 : 380–401
• Gleason T., Titi C., 2022. The Right to Regulate, Academic Forum on ISDS Concept Paper, 2022, 2 : online