Organizational transformation through the socio‐economic approach in an industrial context

For more than a century companies’ organizational variables have been studied and researched. Historically, the practice is to focus on the precursors in the management sciences field, Frederick Winslow Taylor, Henri Fayol and Max Weber, the founders of the classical organization theory school. The objective of this article is to determine if the fundamental principles of this school are still present and an integral part of industrial companies today, and if so, to assess their impact. The paper demonstrates how the socio‐economic approach, which was created in 1973, goes well beyond the socio‐technical and organizational‐development approaches to change management, by taking into better account the economic and strategic dimensions of leadership management.