Corporate history belongs to everyone. It belongs just as much to communications professionals keen to craft unifying narratives for their clients and staff, as it does to historians who advocate honesty when it comes to the grey areas. To prevent the past from being rewritten, researchers are calling for the promotion of an ‘ethic of organisational memory’.

The way organisations construct their past is never trivial; it is the result of a collective, negotiated – and sometimes conflict-ridden process involving stakeholders with divergent interests. For example, Lacoste makes no mention of the 1990s, a decade marked by internal conflicts. Numerous examples illustrate the ethical questions that society and businesses are only just beginning – at best – to articulate.

In our research, published in the Journal of Business Ethics and Décisions Marketing, we examine how these narratives are actually constructed, who negotiates them, who yields, who resists these constructions, and also what these practices reveal about organisations’ responsibility toward their past.

Our findings have led us to advocate for the emergence of a new ethic of organisational memory centred on dialogue, corporate accountability, spaces for deliberation, and a certain courage in the face of organisations’ potential dark hours.

‘Rhetorical History’

Corporate museums, travelling exhibitions, commemorative books, advertising campaigns are often saturated with sepia tones and references to a company’s origins… for firms, historical heritage has become an asset in its own right, managed, promoted and monetised. Hermès showcases its archives in a Parisian concept store, Michelin offers an immersive experience in Clermont-Ferrand, and The Laughing Cow (brand of processed cheese) has opened a museum-house on the very site where it was founded in 1921.

Since the mid-2000s, this trend has sparked a wave of research in management sciences centred around ‘uses of the past’. Researchers Andrew Popp, Roy Suddaby, Mads Mordhorst and Daniel Wadhwani have shown that history is not simply about what happened, but what organisations choose to make of it. Roy Suddaby speaks of ‘rhetorical history: the past can be a tool for persuasion, legitimisation and differentiation.

It is within this field that our research is situated, focusing on a question that its founders have explored only to a limited extent: that of ethical issues. For a brand with deep-rooted heritage and expertise passed down through the generations acquires a form of moral authority that is difficult to challenge. Historical legitimacy is a market value of the highest order.

But who, exactly, constructs this history?

Honesty about the grey areas

Behind every brand narrative lies a network of diverse stakeholders, both within and outside the organisation: academic historians commissioned for one-off projects, consultants specialising in 'heritage branding’, in-house archive managers, art directors, exhibition designers and marketing managers.

We conducted interviews with these various professionals and studied six major French companies: Air France, Hermès, Lacoste, The Laughing Cow, Michelin and SNCF – to better understand how two main approaches clash, rarely in harmony.

On the one hand, historians – whether academics or consultancy specialists – advocate a code of ethics based on the rigour of sources, the comprehensiveness of the narrative and honesty regarding grey areas. One of them refused to sign off on a book commissioned by a major bank, the text of which had been expurgated of all references to the occupation of France during WWII:

‘You give me my money and publish whatever you like. But without my name.’

On the other hand, marketing and communications teams think primarily in terms of narrative coherence, brand positioning and appeal to consumers. The past is, above all, raw material to be shaped in the service of a present-day strategy and a unifying narrative. Some admit this quite openly: they search the archives for material that supports the desired narrative, not necessarily what is most representative of historical reality.

“The ‘Inside Chanel’ films are a textbook example that glorifies the founder’s story. But it is also a skilful rewriting: controversial subjects are carefully erased, a far cry from what serious historical research reveals,” points out a brand heritage consultant.

Between these two professions, compromises are negotiated, sometimes amid tension. The roles become blurred: the historian advises on ‘marketing assets’, while the marketing department decides on the interpretation of the past. What one deems unacceptable, the other calls an editorial choice, each responding to the demands of their profession.

Such uses of the past can thus give rise to abuses of memory.

Misuse of memory

The misuse of memory extends beyond the companies that practise it. It affects the collective memory. Major brands are powerful cultural actors, whose narratives circulate in advertising campaigns, museums and exhibitions.

When an industrial company retrospectively portrays itself as a pioneer of the ecological transition, or when a luxury brand gives the impression of having an unbroken tradition, they are writing a history whose terms they control while profiting from it.

The problem is not what they say about their past, but that this narrative presents itself as something it is not, feeding potentially misleading stories into the public consciousness: “Consumers cannot tell what is true and what is false,” a historian-consultant told us.

Repressed, manipulated or forced memory

To understand these tensions, in one of our articles we drew on the work of the philosopher Paul Ricœur, whose book La Mémoire, l'histoire, l'oubli (2000) distinguishes three types of abuse within political societies. These categories apply with unsettling accuracy to the world of organisations.

• Repressed memory

This is the silence surrounding what is uncomfortable: social conflicts, compromises with unsavoury regimes, or governance scandals. A financial institution that erases its involvement in the financing of slave plantations in the 19th century is not merely committing a commercially embarrassing omission; it is concealing potentially significant historical responsibilities.

Our interviewees agree on this point: an organisation should not lie about its past. They differ, however, on what constitutes a lie. For some, omission is acceptable, even necessary. For others, it amounts to censorship.

• Manipulated memory

This is the most widespread and insidious form of memory manipulation; the facts are not suppressed, but reinterpreted to make them say what they never said. A historian working for a large company recounted the following awkward situation to us: in 1996, the company launched a technological trial driven by performance requirements, with no environmental considerations whatsoever. Years later, this trial is presented as proof that the company was a ‘pioneer in environmental matters’.

This is a common practice. A non-chronological exhibition creates an artificial continuity that erases the breaks in the narrative. Its effectiveness lies precisely in its blend of the true and the fabricated (authentic archives, real objects, sincere testimonies, etc.), which makes it difficult for an uninformed public to unpick.

• Forced memory

This represents the opposite extreme: a duty to remember transformed into a communication tool. Anniversaries outside jubilee years, founders elevated to mythical status, national events harnessed to reinforce a brand identity, and so on. A heritage communications manager ironically described this as the art of riding ‘the retro wave, the enthusiasm for nostalgia and authenticity’.

The collective memory of a profession, a region or an era ends up being captured for the benefit of a single brand, which derives disproportionate legitimacy from it.

The ethics of organisational memory

In light of these findings, what can be done?

At a time when companies are expected to demonstrate transparency and consistency, the management of memory can no longer be left solely to communications professionals. Constructing historical narratives is an ethical act. Whether selecting, omitting, highlighting or concealing, all these decisions shape the way in which an organisation chooses to accept or reject its responsibilities.

This also involves structuring the dialogue between stakeholders so that archivists, historians, communications teams and senior management can work hand in hand. Genuine forums for deliberation, where historical rigour, objectives and narrative imperatives are negotiated transparently, would be a first step in this direction.

This requires acknowledging that certain uncomfortable truths can become a resource. Organisations that have confronted difficult chapters of their history have often found that this honesty ultimately strengthens the trust of their audiences.

The past does not belong exclusively to anyone. It is a shared, fragmentary asset, constantly subject to interpretation. Companies that make use of it have a responsibility commensurate with the influence they wield. Paul Ricœur spoke of ‘just memory’; neither an obsession with the past nor a comfortable amnesia.

Organisations, too, should be held to this standard.

Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.

A Kodak engineer built the first digital camera in 1975. The bosses said: “That’s cute, but don’t tell anyone”. On inventing a filmless device that would revolutionise photography, the reaction inside the company, was more or less that it was a charming little toy and that they should probably keep quiet about it.

Kodak had owned photographic film for most of the 20th century. That was the problem. They were so attached to what had made them rich that they could not see their own invention for what it was. Bankruptcy followed in 2012.

I start my book “Seven Building Blocks of a Successful Corporate Restructuring” with that story on purpose. After three decades running corporate restructurings as a CFO and then a CEO, I am convinced this simple anecdote explains almost everything about why companies die. Not the bad ones. The good ones. The information was sitting there.

The innovation was invented right there in their own laboratory. What was missing was the nerve to act on a signal while it was still quiet. Because that is the whole game. The best crisis management is making sure the crisis never shows up. And that depends on something the strategist Igor Ansoff named decades ago: weak signals. Early, messy, hard-to-measure hints that something is shifting, long before it lands on the balance sheet.

Why does this matter right now?

The EY-Parthenon Restructuring Pulse Survey, which polls more than 200 workout banking professionals across 25 countries, expects European restructuring to keep climbing through 2026, with Eastern Europe as the epicenter. Geopolitical tension as a trigger doubled in six months. None of this is arriving as one dramatic bang. It is piling up quietly, point by point. Which is exactly the kind of weather in which weak signals go unread.

Here is the good news, and it is genuinely good news. Companies almost never fall off a cliff. They slide. Slowly. In the book I lay out the phases of that slide. A comfortable pre-phase: business is fine, everyone relaxes. Then an early phase, when the first cracks form a pattern – quality slips, stock builds, margins thin, suppliers get paid a little later than they used to. The slide is slow precisely so you have time to act, if you are watching.

And the companies least likely to be watching are the ones with the longest winning streaks. I call the people running them fair-weather captains. They have been right for so long they have forgotten that past success guarantees nothing at all. The longer the streak, the louder a weak signal has to shout before anyone hears it, by which point it is no longer weak.

You can watch this happening today. Microsoft cut around 15,000 roles across 2025. Plenty of people inside the building saw it coming months ahead, reading the hiring freezes, the withdrawn resources, and the sudden performance reviews for exactly what they were. The signal was clear. Recognising it was the hard part. None of the tools for this are exotic. That is what frustrates me. A ‘weak signal’ system is not a crystal ball; it is a habit of leadership. PESTEL for the wider environment. Porter’s five forces for the competition. An honest SWOT – and I mean honest – for your own weaknesses.

The framework is never the issue.

The issue is whether you will write down the thing you do not want to be true, and move while moving is still cheap.

Kodak had the analysis. Nokia, king of mobile phones, had everything it needed when Apple turned up with a touchscreen, and bet on the keyboard anyway. Blockbuster could see exactly what Netflix could see. Every one of them could read the signal. Every one of them chose not to.

I run a research project in Luxembourg, the Early Warning Systems initiative, looking at exactly this: whether firms actually gather weak signals from their ecosystem, and whether they do anything with them. The answer, again and again, is that the gap is almost never about missing information. It is psychological. It is organisational. It is human.

Which brings me to the most uncomfortable part of prevention, and the part nobody likes to discuss: the people who commission a restructuring plan.

When the work starts turning up facts they did not want, those same people often start ducking. They deny the information. They bury it. They reframe it. Restructuring action designed to confirm what the boss already believes is worse than no restructuring at all. So before I accept any mandate, I want to understand the real motivation of whoever is handing it to me. Because a plan is only ever as honest as the person who ordered it.

And this is why you measure everything from day one. Business management expert Peter Drucker said it: “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”.

Without clear priorities, real targets, and feedback to track them, restructuring is just a firework. Loud, brief, gone.

Planning does not turn uncertainty into certainty. It does something smaller and far more useful. Fewer loud crises blow up in your face because you had the nerve to listen to the quiet ones.

Dr Dino I. Dogan is an executive and academic who has held CFO and board roles at Vipnet (now A1 Croatia), mobilkom austria, Telekom Austria and Hrvatski Telekom, served as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Europlakat, leading major restructuring and merger efforts. He is the author of the Springer book Seven Building Blocks of Successful Corporate Restructuring.

Dr Dino Dogan ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

Le 18 mars 2026, la Cour de cassation valide un système de géolocalisation qui suit des distributeurs en continu pendant leur tournée. Comment l’expliquer ? Cette décision fait-elle loi ? Y a-t-il d’autres alternatives ?

Le 18 mars 2026, la chambre sociale de la Cour de cassation, la plus haute juridiction pour les litiges en droit du travail, valide un système de géolocalisation, Distrio, pour une société de distribution, Mediapost. Ce système « enregistre la localisation des distributeurs (d’imprimés publicitaires) toutes les dix secondes au moyen d’un boîtier mobile que les distributeurs portent sur eux lors de leur tournée et qu’ils activent eux-mêmes ».

Le feu vert de la Cour de cassation est conditionné à l’exigence de fiabilité du décompte des heures. Autrement dit, à la démonstration par l’employeur que son système compte les heures de façon fiable.

C’est un syndicat, la fédération Sud-Est des activités postales et des télécommunications, qui avait attaqué le dispositif Distrio (le boîtier de géolocalisation) en le jugeant illégal. La Cour de cassation lui donne tort. L’apport de la décision ne tient pas seulement à ce résultat : il tient à la façon dont les juges articulent leur raisonnement habituel avec un critère venu du droit de l’Union européenne, la fiabilité du décompte des heures de travail.

En consacrant ma thèse au lien de subordination à l’épreuve du numérique, j’ai analysé comment ces dispositifs déplacent la frontière entre contrôle de l’employeur et protection du salarié.

Deux conditions cumulatives

Depuis 2011, la Cour de cassation soumet à deux conditions cumulatives la licéité d’un dispositif de géolocalisation servant au contrôle de la durée du travail des salariés :

• Ce contrôle ne doit pas pouvoir être fait par un autre moyen, fût-il moins efficace. Par exemple, cela peut être une feuille d’heures remplie à la main, un badge à l’entrée ou un relevé déclaratif ;

• Le salarié ne doit pas disposer d’une liberté dans l’organisation de son travail. Un salarié commercial qui choisit ses rendez-vous, son itinéraire et ses horaires est libre dans son organisation et ne peut donc pas être suivi par un dispositif de géolocalisation.

Cette grille avait été appliquée à plusieurs reprises. La Cour de cassation a refusé pendant longtemps de valider ce type de dispositif : en 2018 et à deux reprises en 2024.

Faute de preuve, le système de suivi a été invalidé. Dans l’une des affaires, le distributeur réclamait près de 50 000 euros d’heures supplémentaires impayées, un signe de l’importance du décompte des heures. Dès lors qu’un autre moyen, même moins efficace, était admis, il était presque impossible de faire accepter ce type de dispositif.

Protection de la santé des travailleurs

L’arrêt du 18 mars 2026 vient affiner cette position.

La chambre sociale de la Cour de cassation adosse son raisonnement à une décision de la Cour de justice de l’Union européenne. Elle oblige les États membres à imposer aux employeurs un système « objectif, fiable et accessible » de mesure du temps de travail journalier. Pour la Cour de justice, cette obligation vise à garantir l’effectivité du droit au repos et à la protection de la santé des travailleurs.

Le changement de perspective est net. Le contrôle de la durée du travail n’est plus un simple objectif susceptible de justifier une atteinte à la vie privée du salarié. Il devient une obligation à laquelle l’employeur est tenu, pour garantir la santé du salarié.

Concrètement, sans système fiable, un salarié itinérant qui dépasse régulièrement ses horaires ne peut ni faire constater ses heures supplémentaires ni faire respecter ses temps de repos. Mesurer devient une condition pour protéger.

Maintien de conditions strictes

La validation des juges tient toujours à deux conditions.

L’autonomie des distributeurs est jugée « très relative » : ni les documents ni les destinataires ni les parcours ni les dates ne sont à leur main. Seuls les horaires de la journée le sont. Le boîtier est activé volontairement par le salarié en phase de distribution.

Il s’éteint à sa demande et n’enregistre rien pendant les déplacements personnels ou les pauses. Les données transitent par un tiers de confiance, sans suivi en temps réel par l’employeur. L’employeur ne déclenche un échange avec le salarié qu’au-delà d’un écart de 5 % entre temps planifié et temps enregistré sur la semaine.

À lire aussi : Jusqu’où peut aller l’espionnage des télétravailleurs ?

La chambre sociale de la Cour de cassation valide la motivation de la Cour d’appel de Lyon, qui avait écarté les alternatives proposées par le syndicat. Celui-ci en avançait plusieurs :

• Que les salariés déclarent eux-mêmes leurs heures ;

• Qu’on interroge les habitants sur le passage du distributeur ;

• Qu’un responsable accompagne les tournées ;

• Ou encore qu’un badge enregistre débuts et fins de journée.

L’ensemble de ces propositions a été écarté, car aucun de ces dispositifs ne permet, selon les juges, un décompte suffisamment fiable, sans être excessivement onéreux, des heures réellement travaillées.

Quand la fiabilité justifie la surveillance

Sous l’influence du droit de l’Union européenne, le contrôle ne porte plus seulement sur l’existence d’un moyen alternatif, mais sur l’existence d’un moyen alternatif fiable. Autrement dit, tout dispositif moins attentatoire aux libertés du salarié doit prévaloir sur la géolocalisation dès lors qu’il permet, avec un degré de fiabilité suffisant, d’assurer le contrôle de la durée du travail.

Si un système de pointage, sans suivi des déplacements, devenait suffisamment fiable et accessible pour mesurer le temps de travail d’un distributeur, la première condition cesserait alors d’être remplie et la géolocalisation redeviendrait illicite. À l’employeur de démontrer, pour chaque dispositif, qu’aucun autre moyen ne permet un décompte fiable.

Pauline Prépin ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.