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Technological Changes and Human Resources Set
coordinated by
Patrick Gilbert
Volume 2
Quantifying Human Resources
Uses and Analyses
Clotilde Coron
First published 2020 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address:
ISTE Ltd
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UK
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
111 River Street
Hoboken, NJ 07030
USA
© ISTE Ltd 2020
The rights of Clotilde Coron to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019957535
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-78630-446-9
Acknowledgments
I would like to warmly thank all the people working at IAE Paris, the administrative staff and the teachers–researchers, for the stimulating working atmosphere and exchanges. In particular, I would like to thank Patrick Gilbert for his trust, support and wise advice.
My gratitude also goes to Pascal Braun for his attentive review and enriching remarks.
Finally, I would like to thank the team at ISTE, without whom this book would not have been possible.
Introduction
This book arises from an initial observation: quantification has gradually invaded all modern Western societies, and organizations and companies are not exempt from this trend. As a result, the human resources (HR) function is increasingly using quantification tools. However, quantification raises specific questions when it concerns human beings. Consequently, HR quantification gives rise to a variety of approaches, in particular: an approach that values the use of quantification as a guarantee of objectivity, of scientific rigor and, ultimately, of the improvement of the HR function; and a more critical approach that highlights the social foundations of the practice of quantification and thus challenges the myth of totally neutral or objective quantification. These two main approaches make it possible to clarify the aim of this book, which seeks to take advantage of their respective contributions to maintain a broad vision of the challenges of HR quantification.
I.1. The omnipresence of quantification in Western societies
In The Measure of Reality, Crosby (1998) describes the turning point in Medieval and Renaissance Europe that led to the supremacy of quantitative over qualitative thinking. Crosby gives several examples illustrating how widespread this phenomenon was in various fields: the invention and diffusion of the mechanical clock, double-entry accounting and perspective painting, for example. Even music could not escape this movement of “metrologization” (Vatin 2013). It became “measured”, rhythmic and obeyed quantified rules. Crosby goes so far as to link the rise of quantification to the supremacy that Europeans enjoyed in the following centuries.
The author reminds us that the transition to measurement and the quantitative method has been part of a very important change in mentality, and that the deeply rooted habits of a society dominated by
