Entre autonomie et contrôle : quelle régulation pour les systèmes de gestion des connaissances ?

Knowledge management systems contribute to the emergence of new organizational forms such as post-bureaucratic and decentralized organizations. Hence, these systems affect the control and autonomy of organizational actors. On one side, they enhance horizontal communication and encourage self-organizing and self-managing teams. On the other side, they control organizational actors through tracking and monitoring the informal flow of information. However, controlling actors can constrain collective intelligence and creativity. But simultaneously, the autonomy enhanced through these systems can destabilize the organization and act against its interests. How can organizations regulate the tension between autonomy and control while implementing knowledge management systems ? This paper aims at analyzing this relevant question through conducting a case study within the information systems department of Infra/SNCF and using the regulation theory of Reynaud. By using this theory for analyzing the social appropriation process of knowledge management systems, this research shows that the implementation of such systems leads to new rules of autonomy and control. These rules can however coexist, be contradictory or disable action.