Contents

CHANGES IN WORK AND THE PLACE OF ENGINEERS

1  Editorial

Pierre Couveinhes

5   Foreword: A new role for engineers?

Marie-Josèphe Carrieu-Costa

Work: Changing conceptions and practices

11  Work, employment, activity — Social history

Annie Fouquet

16  Working… or measuring work?

Marie-Ange Cotteret, Anne-Marie Breuil and Danièle Bretelle-Desmazières

22  Controlling work: From verifying the conformity of operations to blocking initiatives

Philippe Zarifian

27   The subjective precariousness of work?

Danièle Linhart

35   Information and communication technology and the

contents of work

Christophe Elie-dit-Cosaque

40   What if work were explained in terms of gift-giving?

Laetitia Pihel

46   The gift paradigm, a critique or a lesson in management?

Norbert Alter

Work and engineers: Yesterday, today and tomorrow

52   Mining Corps engineers and changes in occupational safety in mine work during the 19th and 20thcenturies

Jean-Louis Escudier

60   The changing role of engineers

Emmanuelle Verger

63  What kind of engineers does the state now need?

Fabrice Dambrine

70   The jobs of engineers, a source of innovation in Europe

Philippe Brunet and Fabrice Comptour

74   The reality of the engineer’s work and changes in it

Claude Maury

83   Training engineers in school and on the job

Cyril Faure

90   Engineers, stakeholders in the changing world of work

Pascal Fournier

95   The era of the finite world has opened…

Thierry Gaudin

Appendix

105    Work through history and texts 

Appendix2 of the report by the committee chaired by Jean Boissonnat, “Le travail dans 20 ans” [Work in twenty years], Commissariat général du Plan, 1995.

Miscellany

113   IN MEMORIAM: Maurice Allais

Marcel Boiteux

Issue editors: Marie-Josèphe Carrieu-Costa and Pierre

Couveinhes