Marion Flécher^[1]

Start-ups, the innovative young companies born in Silicon Valley, are very popular in France today, while large French companies have been the subject of much criticism since the 1990s (Boltanski and Chiapello, 1999). They are seen as too rigid and too hierarchical, unsuited to the new challenges posed by globalisation and new technologies. Thus, young graduates who have just entered the labour market and are looking for autonomy and responsibility at work (Méda and Vendramin, 2013) are increasingly turning to the start-up model, which they see as an alternative to the large company model, where they no longer envisage a career.

The artist critique, formulated in the 1990s to denounce the forms of oppression suffered by the individual (hierarchy, authority, prescribed tasks, and fixed schedules) and to defend individual autonomy and the self-organisation of collectives (Boltanski and Chiapello, 1999), seems to have provided the start-up model with its discourse of legitimation. The start-up model is presented as the implementation of the ‘new spirit of capitalism’ through modes of project-based work organisation, valuing autonomy, versatility, creativity, team spirit, openness to others, and conviviality (ibid.). However, there is reason to question the myths surrounding start-ups, and to wonder to what extent this new business model delivers on its promises.

Often associated with the ‘liberated enterprise’ model and driven by entrepreneurs seeking to break away from the big business model, the start-up model is said to depart from the traditional, silo-based business model. Echoing the anti-hierarchical denunciations and aspirations for autonomy of the 1960s, this model invites us to rethink the dichotomies between freedom and constraint, autonomy and control, and equality and hierarchy by asking ourselves whether they have really succeeded in breaking with the organisational model of the traditional large company. What are the autonomy conditions in these companies? To what extent is work there freer and more liberated than in large companies? We will consider whether these companies offer something truly new, and how they transform the traditional relationships of subordination at work.

To answer these questions, we will rely on an ethnographic field survey conducted in a Parisian start-up, emblematic of growing French start-ups. Created in 2014 by three co-founders^[2], this start-up is a marketplace^[3] that sells through a website products made by independent merchants. The survey was conducted by participant observation over a period of four months, between September and December 2018. The company had just raised €40 million and was growing rapidly: its workforce had increased from 50 people in January 2018 to 115 at the time the survey began, in September 2018. For four months, I worked in this start-up as a ‘project manager’ in the Human Resources (HR) department. I was in charge of analysing a job satisfaction questionnaire that had been given to the employees before my arrival, building the organisation charts of the different departments, and conducting the ‘company culture’ interviews with the employees. I was thus able to observe the daily activity of the teams and conduct interviews with the three co-founders of the start-up as well as with 45 employees (14 women, 31 men), including two trainees, one work-study student, 12 non-executive employees, 10 executive employees, and 13 managers, as well as six department heads. The company was organised into eight departments: the developers’ department, called ‘BOT’ for ‘Bureau Of Technology’; the customer service department, called ‘Customer Care’; the sales department, called ‘Biz Dev’ for ‘Business Development’; the marketing department; the HR and finance department; the quality department; the brand and design department; and the ‘buy back’ department for product returns. The average age was 27, and only nine people had been with the company for more than two years.

First of all, we will attempt to understand how the start-up model has come to be associated with that of a flexible and deverticalised organisation, emblematic of the liberated company model. Second, we will analyse the sources of control in these companies. If they present themselves as being more flexible than large traditional companies, does this mean that employees are completely free in their work?

1. Start-ups, the utopia of a ‘liberated’ company

If the start-up model has gradually become associated with the organisational ideals of the ‘liberated’ enterprise, it is mainly because it emerged in Silicon Valley in the 1980s, taking on board many elements of the ‘hacker’ and ‘geek’ cultures of free software. The start-up model was strongly inspired by the organisation, management and communication methods of these communities, but also by their culture and values, placing ‘openness’, ‘collaboration’, and ‘freedom’ at the heart of their managerial rhetoric.

1.1. A business model inspired by the principles of the free software community

It was on the West Coast of the United States, in opposition to bureaucracy and routine, rationalised and isolated work, that start-ups gradually emerged as a business model, bringing with them new management and work organisation methods. The aim of the technology companies of the time was to attract and retain engineers through advantageous salary policies (paid vacations, health insurance, pension system, profit-sharing through the stock option system) but also managerial policies that broke with traditional organisations. These modes of organisation and management were largely borrowed from the hacker culture and the free software communities that developed in the valley between the 1960s and 1980s.

At that time, the IT and web development professions experienced an unprecedented boom. Computing eventually became a true industry, centrally deployed for the military, the government, and large monopolies, such as IBM and Microsoft (Depoorter, 2013). In opposition to the commodification of computing by the giants of this industry, the counter-cultural movements, led by hackers, began to demand freer and more ‘personal’ uses of these technologies, creating the free software movement (Levy, 1984). Since the 1980s, a large community of technicians and specialists with a passion for computer science (Depoorter, 2013) has developed around the design of so-called ‘non-proprietary’ software^[4] (Stallman et al., 2013), the aim of which was to leave source code open to all users. These types of software could therefore be freely used, studied, modified, and distributed (Broca, 2018), based on the pooling of free contributions from developers. The birth of free software was therefore a technical innovation but also a social innovation (Vicente, 2015), with free access collaborative spaces (open source) where everyone could contribute to the creation of software, whether by correcting each other or by sharing advice on discussion lists. Open-source software thus imposed a break in production methods and intellectual property rules, replacing the laws of monopoly with a collaborative model based on horizontality and sharing.

Initially carried as a genuine social movement, free software has given rise to a true ‘community’ united around a set of common values and objectives (Broca and Coriat, 2015): self-management, circulation of information, anti-hierarchical collaboration, and valuing creativity (Levy, 1984; Stallman et al., 2013). This community has thus initiated a ‘culture of freedom’ (Broca, 2018), based on the principles of free work, freed from the constraints of the body, authority, and time. In this community, there is no obligation to work in an office, no fixed hours, no hierarchical pressure, and no obligation to achieve results. Work is conceived as a means of deploying one’s subjectivity, without hierarchical or authoritarian supervision (Broca, 2018), in a blurring of the boundaries between work and leisure, work time and free time, the professional and the personal (Lazzarato and Negri, 1991; Vicente, 2015). These principles have resulted in the development of new modes of work organisation, based on the principles of equality and horizontality at work, and new, more collaborative modes of management, allowing for renewed modes of deliberation and participation. This cultural and organisational model then served as a technical, cultural, and organisational reference for other communities, such as the ‘makers’ (Lallement, 2015), spreading their ‘grammar’^[5] beyond the boundaries of the digital world, and in particular to the start-up model.

While the values and principles of these communities have been largely constitutive of a ‘utopia’ (Broca, 2013), they have nevertheless provided the technical and discursive resources to justify and legitimise a new economic world: that of digital capitalism, of which Silicon Valley would constitute the centre, and start-ups the major players. The start-up model thus seems to have borrowed the utopian principles and values of the free software movement to present itself as more horizontal, open, collaborative, and distributed organisations, capable of adapting to the challenges of a globalised market and responding to the expectations of engineers seeking subjective fulfilment at work.

1.2. An attempt to respond to artist criticism

Luc Boltanski and Éve Chiapello (1999) explain that, since the beginning of the nineteenth century, capitalism has generated four major ‘sources of indignation’ (disenchantment and inauthenticity, oppression and subordination at work, destitution and inequality, opportunism and egoism) which, depending on the period, have given rise to two types of critique: the artistic critique, which denounced the alienation and the lie of an order that, far from liberating the potentialities of men, subjected them to the domination of instrumental rationalities; and the social critique, which denounced exploitation at work and wage inequalities.

While large companies have tried to respond to both types of criticism, the 1993 recession, which reinforced the rationalisation of work and the restriction of workers’ room for manoeuvre, led to a feeling of loss of meaning among employees, and especially among managers (Lallement, 2007). At the same time, technological transformations have made large traditional companies much less attractive, while the image associated with start-ups has become increasingly positive. The ‘new spirit of capitalism’ of the 1990s thus seems to have provided the rhetorical basis for justifying the start-up model, whose creators sought to break with the spirit of traditional capitalism. It is ‘against’ big business and its forms of oppression (hierarchy, authority, prescribed tasks, and fixed hours) that the start-up model, which values the autonomy of workers and the self-organisation of collectives, has built its justifying apparatus and discourse of legitimisation.

The start-up model thus seems to have taken on board the elements of the critique to present itself as an alternative model to the classic large company. They have thereby become the archetypical contemporary organisations of this ‘new spirit of capitalism’: flexible, inventive, weakly hierarchical, capable of adapting to the transformations linked to globalisation and technological progress. The managerial model of the start-up thus highlights the flexibility allowed by project-based organisation, but also the autonomy and responsibility of workers.

It is as if the free software movements, combined with the artistic critique of the 1960s, had provided the start-up model with both technical and discursive resources to justify and legitimise itself. It is thus by drawing on the hacker and free software communities’ spirit of rupture that start-ups have succeeded in breaking away from large traditional companies, while playing the game of modern capitalism.

2. The new springs of control

If working relationships and control arrangements are more informal, more personal, and more fluid than in large companies, are they nonetheless devoid of any power relationships? As Pascal Ughetto (2018) writes, ‘no autonomy avoids raising the problem of control, any more than the affirmation of the primacy of control eradicates the search for the margin of freedom’. The organisational and managerial model of start-ups therefore invites us to rethink the oppositions between autonomy and control, freedom and constraint, equality and hierarchy by taking an interest in the forms of control on which this supposedly more liberated business model is based.

2.1. Project-based management as a means of engaging employees

The start-up model is characterised by a new production model: that of project-based management, which emphasises the autonomy, participation, and accountability of employees at all levels of the hierarchy. Thus, in function or in practice, all Boomerang employees are ‘managers’, ‘project leaders’ or ‘responsible’ for something, and are even involved in defining their own objectives, on which their variable salary depends.

According to Sophie Bernard (2020), these incentives for mobilising the workforce are characteristic of a ‘new spirit of wage-earning’, which aims to put workers’ autonomy at the service of the company’s performance. The project is meant to create autonomy ‘for’ the organisation. Thus, the autonomy and empowerment of employees, on which project-based management rests, make it possible to increase their level of involvement and productivity, shifting the constraint to the interiority of people. As they are made responsible for their work, employees are ready to mobilise all their resources and to over-invest in it, all the more voluntarily as they feel they are doing so willingly. Hence, the increase in autonomy at work goes paradoxically hand in hand with an increase in control (Bernard, 2020; Hodgson and Briand, 2013). As autonomy is demanded rather than granted, it can become a constraint for employees, who do not always have the necessary organisational and managerial support to cope with their difficulties (Ughetto, 2007).

The requirement of autonomy, which is characteristic of the start-up model, is also part of a wider set of constraints that frame the work and encourage employees to internalise control. In start-ups, workers are required to achieve objectives, measured by numerical indicators called Key Performance Indicators, on which the variable part of their salary depends. These forms of performance measurement and evaluation, combined with forms of merit-based pay, which function as a ‘carrot’, thus make it possible to place the emphasis on results, rather than on the execution of the work.

Although employees feel that they have little control from their superiors over their work, the start-up’s managerial model is in fact based on a process of constraint internalisation by the employees, through which they feel personally responsible for their work and their results. Thereby, the combination of these managerial arrangements makes it possible to obtain a high level of commitment to work, without having to force them to do so through hierarchical pressure.

2.2. Management tools that encourage overwork

These project-based management methods are also based on collaborative tools which push employees to overwork. Yet these tools initially aim to break with the formal, compartmentalised, and hierarchical modes of coordination and communication of the large company, encouraging a participative and collaborative logic and a certain freedom of speech and tone (Benedetto-Meyer and Klein, 2017). For instance, Slack, an instant messaging tool that is very widespread in start-ups, allows people to chat with their colleagues or hierarchical superiors in a very informal tone, punctuated by the use of emoji and with very little attachment to formalism.

However, at the same time as this type of tool makes it possible to break with hierarchical and spatial boundaries, it increases the demands on employees and the need to react. The flow of messages, which arrive continuously, can even become a real constraint for some employees, increasing their workload and intensifying the pace of their activity. Moreover, by allowing work to be done at home as well as in the office, this type of collaborative tool makes the boundary between work and non-work more porous and disconnection more difficult, to the point where work often extends beyond the company premises (Boboc and Dhaleine, 2007). While employees feel they have more freedom and autonomy in the organisation of their time and work, it is very common for them to take work home:

Well, I’m beginning to find a way. During the last holidays, I managed to detach myself a little from work, psychologically, but for three years, it was 80 hours a week, from 8 a.m. to 2 a.m. […] Now I work from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. And during weekends, I always check something at home. On my phone, I have all the follow-ups, all the metrics, all the stuff. Afterwards, I try to stop. (Julien, 31 years old, MA in Business, head of marketing, executive on permanent contract)

In addition, behind their appearance of neutrality, these tools make it possible to continuously track the progress of projects and to collect a large amount of data, which is then used to evaluate employee performance. Without having to be constantly behind them, managers obtain a lot of data on employees, which can be used as indicators to measure their productivity and work involvement.

2.3. Uniting for better control

Finally, the process of self-control is reinforced by the strong spatial and relational proximity that characterises these companies. Even when they enter a growth phase, the offices of start-ups are always organised in open spaces, in configurations that are favourable to mutual observation and control internalisation. Knowing that they are possibly being observed, employees may feel pressure to overwork. It is because of this social pressure mechanism, exerted by peers, that most of the employees at Boomerang, even those who did not have managerial status, stayed at work one or two hours longer per day.

The temporal investment of start-up employees in their work is also not unrelated to the company’s policy, which aims to unite the work group and create an emotional and moral attachment to the company. For Isabelle Berrebi-Hoffmann (2016), social control is a direct factor in the frequency and intensity of interactions between individuals. It is therefore through the physical proximity of employees, work activities (parties, training, sports activities), and relationships established outside of work, as well as pre-existing networks of inter-acquaintance (attending the same schools, co-optation), that social control by peers is achieved. Parties, receptions and other moments of conviviality organised by the company are all opportunities to animate a web of social relations that regulate and govern behaviour, particularly through the logic of reputation that sanctions behaviours deemed deviant. (ibid.). It was through this type of mechanism that a female developer, judged by her colleagues to be underperforming, ended up leaving the company. Her lack of performance had become so well known within the company that, following informal discussions between some of the developers and the founders during a company event, they decided to let her go.

In start-ups, the founders also place great importance on recruitment, which is aimed not only at recruiting competent people but also at creating a true community sharing common interests and values. In addition, the design of the spaces aims to encourage informal interaction free of status labels, in work spaces that are friendly and conducive to building a work culture different from that of large companies. By seeking to bring together the ingredients of subjective well-being at work and presenting itself almost as a ‘total institution’ (Goffman, 1961) taking care of all the needs of employees (meals, sports classes, leisure, social moments, parties, etc.), the start-up model completely blurs the boundaries between social times, professional and social life, work and leisure, and professional and emotional relationships. Open spaces, company events, and project work are all managerial practices that favour the emergence of peer control. In this way, managers can offload the ‘villain’ role and get individual employees to adhere to the corporate culture. Likewise, social control encourages forms of self-control, since it encourages employees to discipline themselves individually.

Conclusion

Finally, what is at stake with the start-up model is not the changeover from a hierarchical and vertical work model to a horizontal, digitalised, and liberated model. Start-ups continue to be characterised by rationality, bureaucracy, power relations, political struggles, and tensions. Nevertheless, control is changing form. It is no longer physical and hierarchical but internalised by the workers themselves, through project-based management and merit-based pay to favour results rather than work execution. It is also made possible by management methods that emphasise the collective, which plays a regulating role in behaviour. These technical and managerial measures therefore convey the image of a decentralised organisation free of hierarchical constraints. But beyond the managerial rhetoric promoting agility, transversality, collaboration, and well-being, the start-up model is in fact based on new forms of control, which are all the more effective because they are internalised by the employees themselves and reinforced by mutual observation.

Although the use of digital tools allows for a certain relaxation of physical constraints, and while working relationships are more relaxed and employees have more autonomy and responsibility in their work, French start-ups are still strongly influenced by the organisational heritage of traditional companies, which the founders almost inevitably end up reproducing, even if their initial speeches and wishes were aimed at freeing themselves from it.

Bibliography

Benedetto-Meyer M. et Klein N., 2017, “Du partage de connaissances au travail collaboratif : portées et limites des outils numériques”, Sociologies pratiques, n° 34, 29-38.

Bernard S., 2020, Le nouvel esprit du salariat : Rémunérations, autonomie, inégalités, Paris, PUF.

Berrebi-Hoffmann I., 2016, “Des mondes du travail sans hiérarchie ?”, in Jean-Michel Saussois (dir.), Les Organisations, Paris, Éditions Sciences Humaines, 402-410.

Boboc A. et Dhaleine L., 2007, “Faire du privé au bureau, une question de genre ?”, Réseaux, n° 145-146, 393-416.

Boltanski L. et Chiapello È., 1999, Le nouvel esprit du capitalisme, Paris, Gallimard.

Boltanski L., 2009, De la critique : Précis de sociologie de l’émancipation, Paris, Gallimard.

Broca S., 2018, “Matière et territoire dans la culture du logiciel libre”, Géographie, économie, société, vol. 20, n° 1, 15‑32.

Broca S. et Coriat B., 2015, “Le logiciel libre et les communs”, Revue internationale de droit économique, vol. XXIX, n° 3, 265‑284.

Depoorter G., 2013, “La communauté du logiciel libre. Espace contemporain de reconfiguration des luttes ?”, in B. Frère et M. Jacquemain (dir.), Résister au quotidien ?, Paris, Presses de Sciences Po, 133-160.

Goffman E., 1961, Asylums : Essays on the social situation of mental patients and other inmates, New York, Vintage Books.

Hodgson D. et Briand L., 2013, “Controlling the uncontrollable : “Agile” teams and illusions of autonomy in creative work”, Work, Employment and Society, vol. 27, n° 2, 308‑325.

Lallement M., 2007, Le travail. Une sociologie contemporaine, Paris, Gallimard.

Lallement M., 2015, L’Âge du faire. Hacking, travail, anarchie, Paris, Seuil.

Lazzarato M. et Negri A., 1991, “Travail immatériel et subjectivité”, Futur antérieur, n° 6, 86‑69.

Levy S., 1984, Hackers, Heroes of the Computer Revolution, New York, Doubleday.

Méda D. et Vendramin P., 2013, Réinventer le travail, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France.

Stallman R. M., Williams S. et Masutti C., 2013, Richard Stallman et la révolution du logiciel libre : Une biographie autorisée, Paris, Eyrolles.

Ughetto P., 2007, Faire face aux exigences du travail contemporain : Conditions du travail et management, Lyon, Éditions de l’ANACT.

Ughetto P., 2018, Organiser l’autonomie au travail, Limoges, FYP Éditions.

Vicente M., 2015, “Les parcours des développeurs de logiciels libres : vecteur de diffusion d’une innovation sociale”, Sociologies pratiques, n° 31, 55‑64.

---