Bernard Guéry

Alternative organizational configurations that propagate discourses of self-expression while also exerting organizational pressure generate tensions that are known as the tensions of new management, which render community-based cooperation particularly difficult. As a consequence, a question arises as to how a common good perspective can help to overcome such tensions by clarifying the conditions for the emergence and development of community-based cooperation. To answer this question, we examine the works by and about Thomas Aquinas, particularly the writings of Charles De Koninck, one of Canada’s most internationally well-known philosophers of the twentieth century. In this conceptual article featuring an illustrative vignette, we highlight two conditions for the emergence of community-based cooperation: (1) the search for an indivisible common good and (2) the aim of a common good that is diffusive of itself—that is, causal, communicable, and superabundant. We posit that the extension of this cooperation is only possible if it is commensurate with both the indivisible and diffusive characters of the common good. Moreover, we argue that these conditions are sufficiently precise and objective to enable members of organizations to avoid the exacerbated forms of individualism and collectivism underlying the new management ideology.

Subsidiarity is often implicitly conceived as an organizational model or a Weberian ideal type. The purpose of this paper is to show that, in contrast, subsidiarity is a principle in the sense of the tradition originating from Thomas Aquinas. Considered as an ideal type, subsidiarity may be perceived as impossible to apply because of its ideal status, abstracted from the circumstances. Here, we will demonstrate the consequences of the fact that subsidiarity is one of the common principles of practical moral reasoning of particular prudence. Because it is a principle, subsidiarity does not have a visualizable substance or prescribe an organizational model, unlike the ideal type. It thus avoids the indiscriminate application of organizational models to contexts that are not appropriate, and in the context of tension between external consultants and managers, it rehabilitates the prudence of leaders who know the circumstances of their organization.

The term « subsidiarity » started to appear in managerial literature in the last few years, to advocate innovative managerial practices. The resurgence of this concept that originated from a political context can create problems. The goal of this paper is to expose the main difficulty of translating this concept from the political field to a corporate situation. Indeed, subsidiarity gives its inherent power back to the lower echelons of a political community. But the economic approach of organization theory assumes, mainly by the means of agency theory, a top-down conception of the firm. Thus, it is not the lower echelons which delegates power to the higher echelons. Consequently, the subsidiarity principle seems not to be applicable to a corporate setting, unless we reverse the assumptions of economic approach of organization theory. Then, the principle of subsidiarity could be used as an illusion to con employees into believing they have legitimate power, in order to manipulate their freedom, and domesticate it for managerial ends.