The passion for Hara-Kiri[La passion "bête et méchante"]

Based on the analysis of the case of the Editions du Square from 1981 to 1985, a French publishing company headed by Georget Bernier, a.k.a Professor Choron, an entrepreneur who has gradually become animated by a boundless passion for Hara-Kiri magazine, the objective of this study is to contribute to a better understanding of the effects of the entrepreneur's passion for the company's product, by analyzing the impact of passion on the consideration of accounting rationalities. Mobilizing the framework of the economies of worth, this article shows that a compromise was established between the industrial world, carried by the manager, and the inspired logic, defended by the passionate entrepreneur, only when the accounting logic has no impact on the perceived quality of the product by the entrepreneur. In the opposite case, the latter ultimately imposed the product as the only common superior principle. This study thus defines the boundaries of compromise between these worlds and questions the need for managerial counterweight to moderate the rigidity induced by an entrepreneur's passion for the company's product, which can lead to lower financial performance.