Background: The changing demands of the environment is leading to the development of new organisational forms. These organisations are characterised by flexibility, specialisation, delegation of authorities and development of competence. Small organisations that have started to adapt innovative constructions in order to be flexible are becoming of increasing importance in trade and industry but are given little attention in current research. Purpose: To make an in-depth study of Agora in order to increase the understanding about small organisations where the majority of the work force consists of self-employed actors. Realisation: We have made a case study on one company, namely Agora. Our empirical findings where collected through six in-depth interviews. Results: We have come to the conclusion that Agora cannot be seen as neither a network organisation nor an imaginary organisation but something in between: an imaginary network. Furthermore, we have identified three main forces that hold the company together: the shared values, the business concept of Agora and the leadership. There is a distinct and strong leadership that to a large extent is linked to the personality of the CEO and it is crucial for the maintenance of Agora.

<p>Background: The changing demands of the environment is leading to the development of new organisational forms. These organisations are characterised by flexibility, specialisation, delegation of authorities and development of competence. Small organisations that have started to adapt innovative constructions in order to be flexible are becoming of increasing importance in trade and industry but are given little attention in current research. </p><p>Purpose: To make an in-depth study of Agora in order to increase the understanding about small organisations where the majority of the work force consists of self-employed actors. </p><p>Realisation: We have made a case study on one company, namely Agora. Our empirical findings where collected through six in-depth interviews. </p><p>Results: We have come to the conclusion that Agora cannot be seen as neither a network organisation nor an imaginary organisation but something in between: an imaginary network. Furthermore, we have identified three main forces that hold the company together: the shared values, the business concept of Agora and the leadership. There is a distinct and strong leadership that to a large extent is linked to the personality of the CEO and it is crucial for the maintenance of Agora.</p>

Les changements qui ont marqué le monde industriel pendant les dernières décennies ont eu un impact significatif sur la réorganisation du travail. La fragmentation de l'organisation à intégration verticale ne peut plus être contestée. L’organisation en réseau se profile désormais comme un modèle capable de répondre au nouveau contexte socio-économique. Avec une structure à frontières irrégulières, à l'intérieur desquelles les organisations et les actions apparaissent moins ordonnées, cette nouvelle forme organisationnelle demeure toutefois objet à exploration, afin d'identifier notamment les règles qui déterminent autant sa structure que les comportements des acteurs qui ont un impact direct sur son fonctionnement. Bien que le secteur privé ait été le premier à subir les effets de ces changements, le secteur public n'en fait pas exception. Le domaine de la santé s'inscrit aujourd'hui dans le paradigme de l'organisation en réseau. L’objectif de cette recherche est de comprendre les mécanismes qui assurent le maintien de cette structure organisationnelle et favorisent sa régulation et son institutionnalisation. Il s’agit plus précisément d’étudier les facteurs qui permettent son fonctionnement interne, soit les mécanismes qui assurent une coordination des services et la collaboration des acteurs. À cette fin, nous avons réalisé une étude de cas qui porte sur un programme de santé, le programme cible santé – maladies chroniques, au sein d’un CISSS du Québec, un réseau local de services de santé. Notre recherche nous a permis d’analyser en profondeur la nature de ce CISSS qui se profile comme un réseau fortement régulé et institutionnalisé et de mettre en évidence l’importance qu’occupent les acteurs dans son fonctionnement réel. Si la définition de l’objectif commun, aligné à la stratégie organisationnelle, permet la planification de l’intégration des ressources et l’adaptabilité aux besoins des usagers, c’est l’équilibre entre ces facteurs qui assure la performance du réseau. La collaboration entre les acteurs, fondée sur la confiance, favorise un tel équilibre et permet la naissance de solutions qui répondent à l’objectif commun, par l’innovation fondée sur le partage ouvert des connaissances. Cela assure une coordination efficace des services de santé. Par ailleurs, si la structure cadre l’action des acteurs, par la définition de règles, ces derniers, par leur implication volontaire au fonctionnement du système, le redéfinissent également. / The changes that have shaped the industry over the past decades had a significant impact on work reorganisation. The break-up of the vertically integrated organisation cannot be questioned any more. The network organisation currently stands out as the model that addresses the new socioeconomic context. With irregular borders, inside which departments and actions appear less orderly, this new organisation structure remains an area of exploration aimed to identify the rules that determine both its design and the behaviours of the players that have direct impact on its operations. Although the private sector was the first to carry the effects of these changes, the public sector was impacted as well. Health care is governed today by the network organisation structure paradigm. The objective of this research is to understand the mechanisms that support this organizational structure, favouring its regulation and its establishment. More precisely it is focused on the analysis of the factors that allow its internal functioning, the coordination of services and the collaboration between different players. To this aim we performed a case study on the chronic disease healthcare target program within a Quebec medical services network (CISSS). Our inquiry allowed us to deep dive into the functioning of this CISSS that stands out as a strongly regulated and institutionalised network and to bring into the spotlight the importance of different players to its operations. The definition of the common objective, aligned with the organizational strategy, allows for the resource integration planning and adaptability to customer needs but it is the harmonisation of these factors that ensures the network’s performance. The stakeholders collaboration based on mutual confidence favours such harmonisation and allows for the identification of solutions that address the common objective, through innovation based on a wide information sharing. This ensures an efficient coordination of the healthcare services. Otherwise, while the structure frames the stakeholders’ actions by defining rules, the stakeholders also reshape the system through their deliberate involvement.