An innovative organization in a context of ruptures: a french ict start-up idealtype

Abstract

This article aims to identify organizational characteristics of the current ICT start-ups. The interest is to understand how a business-type start-up, can propose an innovative work organization, since their emergence is the result of a visible changes (globalization, new technology, new financial business structures...). The methodology uses the Weber’s idealtype to build a representation of work organization in start-ups. From a practical point of view, we opted for start-ups in ICT. Since the Internet bubble burst between 2000 and 2001, we have built and compared two idealtypes “pre-bubble” idealtype and a “post-bubble” idealtype – from the collection of primary and secondary data, so as to highlight the stable characteristics of work organization in start-up situations. Results show an innovative organization, with a mobile structure, where rules are organic, where culture is community, where the leadership style is transformational, where employees are “intrapreneurs” and are searching for learning and skills... This work organization has been observed in a particular sector, such as ICT. However, this ICT start-up idealtype is only a first point of support that suggests new research.JIE Codes: M13, L29