The Past Speaks

AS: I’m sharing a CFP for a conference that will take place in Lille next year. Lille is very close to London via Eurostar, so I suspect this conference will attract lots of UK participants. Given that the theme is related to the history of health care organizations, it would great is lots of US historians could get over so that they could compare notes with their European scholars.

Lille – 18th to 20th March 2015

Organised by the “Association pour l’histoire du management et des organisations” (Association for the History of Management and Organisations), the Research Centre IRHIS-CNRS 8529 (University of Lille 3) and the Research Centre Lille 2 LSMRC – EA 4112 (University of Lille 2 – Skema Business School)

The theme for the twentieth-anniversary conference is: Hospital organisations: mission, structure and rationalisation throughout history

Hospital organisations have evolved considerably since the first general hospitals in France were founded by Louis XIV in 1656. Shaped by history but also by geography (military hospitals, thermal baths and cures, balneotherapy, urban orphanages…), these organisations have experienced a variety of financing mechanisms, depending on the vagaries of political regimes and administrative reforms. The health-care mission developed progressively through time, depending on the evolution of medicine on the one hand, and on the societal values promoted by political powers on the other. Its standing within such organisations produced differentiated styles of management that need to be identified and designated as such. The primary focus of analysis will be the emergence of professional spheres of management in the health and medico-social sector.

– Health-care management practices: heritage and evolution
Private health-care management practices are linked to the evolution of the health-care market (the pharmaceutical industry, health products, the development of private-sector medical services, and the rapid growth of personalised health services…), and seek profitability and profit.
Public health-care management practices are mainly related to the funding of public expenditures. Parish councils, religious foundations, the selling of annuities, the first welfare budget, the creation of social security, State-region agreements, and large public loans (amongst others) are all financing tools. However, the implementation of accounting controls, the legislation governing public finance, the set of collective tools (quality indicators, national cost base, etc.), all constitute as much the managerial turning points that reveal the importance now given to health care within public funding. The management

Since the first elements of social protection established by paternalistic employers during the mid- nineteenth century, the management of occupational health has also greatly evolved in light of increased risks and the impacts of the introduction of new organisational forms. The neglect of certain management aspects in this area could jeopardise the image of the company, which now must find management tools which incorporate employee welfare. Is this humane approach defining a new era of entrepreneurial management?