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An End to French Economic Exceptionalism? The Transformation of Business under Mitterrand
Schmidt, Vivien A.
36/1  (Fall 1993): 75-98

Under Mitterrand's presidency, despite radical swings in government ideology and policy, French business has been transformed. French industry has not only rationalized and internationalized its operations, it has also altered its capital structure, creating a hard-core of investors made up of nationalized and privatized companies, public and private firms, and-for the first time-banks. The environment of business has changed dramatically, with the socialist nationalizations having served to rehabilitate business as the "creator of riches" while the neo-liberal privatizations have fostered the notion that, private or public, business is business. Although management practice has been modernized, labor-management relations ameliorated, and the centralization of decision making somewhat attenuated, the traditional elite recruitment and promotion system, which privileges state education and service and thereby lowers morale and undervalues achievement in business, has only changed modestly.

 

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