Technological Choices and Organizational Excellence: the EDF Case

Corbel, P. « Technological Choices and Organizational Excellence: the EDF Case », Actes du 2ème colloque du MAAOE, Versailles, septembre 2001, tome 1, p.138-149

Abstract : What are the relations between the perception of excellence by the organization managers and their technological choices? We study the main technological choices that EDF, the main French electricity producer, has made since its creation in the light of Abernathy and Utterback’s model. We show that the evolution of the electricity supply market in France does not fit this model perfectly. We propose another explanation, which seems to be more pertinent in the EDF case: those technological choices would depend mainly on the way the company managers perceive organizational excellence, that is how they think the global performance of their company will be measured, at each stage of the evolution of this organization. This case speaks for a more contingent view of analysing technological strategies.