La reprise d'entreprise à l'aune de l'analyse du récit

Whenever a new manager takes over a firm, the whole organization is at risk. The seller should unambiguously hand over the baton to his successor and the corporate identity of the company should evolve and explore new avenues as well as a new managerial style. The past, however, will never be swept away and this inheritance may prove too heavy a burden to bear. The problems that maybe occur during this takeover phase can be highlighted by the trust/allegiance model, previously applied to venture capital funded start-ups. The evolution of corporate identity can be described as a "narraction", a narrative where the entrepreneur foretells the story he makes happen. Trust between the actors implied in the takeover process interplays with allegiance, defined as a set of values linking the actors to a company's corporate identity. Both interpersonal trust and allegiance toward a common vision may reinforce one another or collide, depending on the actors' ability to shape the organisational identity. The issue, for the organisation as a whole, is to find and offer an attractive vision of the company, through a narrative and shared rites and myths. The narrative of a takeover may be typified as a tale.