Innovative Managerial Practices and Well-Being at Work: A Link to be explored[Pratiques managériales innovantes et bien-être au travail : un lien à questionner]

Our study seeks to characterize the potential relationships between innovative managerial practices and well-being at work. Managerial practices result from a contextualization of various management devices and tools which form a system of values, organizational relationships and structures, and technical supports. The proposed model seeks to identify two factors that condition how practices tend to cohere when managerial innovations are implemented, that is, when the system components align with the how actors adopt the devices and the tools. We hypothesize that a high level of coherence in innovative managerial practices leads to the development of more effective, sustainable and positive practices in terms of well-being at work. Our methodology is based on the analysis of 42 interviews conducted in 27 organizations of various sizes and sectors, most of which have adopted new management methods. The results largely confirm the hypothesis, but they also highlight a number of conditions. The conditions pertain to the modalities of innovation implementation and the negative effects that some of them may generate. The theoretical contribution lies in the concept of "coherent practices", posited as a necessary and prior condition for well-being at work. The validation conditions provide relevant elements to guide managers wishing to initiate new modes of management with positive and lasting effects on performance.