La gestion des ressources humaines au sein des ONG internationales: les relations siège-filiale dans un contexte instable (le cas du Burundi)

Executive summary
Applied to different contexts, the approach to management and HRM practices initially operative, considered by some as the essential and universal key to organizational success, may face some contextual constraints and lead to conflicting results. Now, the local context brings to the subsidiary of international organizations little or no opportunities for the Headquarters. At the same time, the local context adds specific constraints. The consideration of these opportunities and constraints by the officials of the subsidiary is a real managerial challenge for them. This implies much more than a simple transfer of what has always worked well elsewhere. This questioning of the success of the universalist perspective pushes us to diagnose other possible ways to suggest for the approach to management and HRM practices that could better accommodate the local management. Our study is particularly concerned with international NGOs operating in sub-Saharan Africa and Burundi in particular. Our theoretical argument mobilizes universalist, culturalist and institutionalist approaches. Our study concerns only the subsidiaries of international NGOs and not their Headquarters. Note that throughout our work, the word "Siège" means the Headquarters and not the local management of the subsidiary. To mark this distinction, we opt to write it with a capital "S".
Based on a contextualist analysis of five case studies of subsidiaries of international NGOs, we find that, upon their arrival or within the first years of implementation of the subsidiary, the leaders of these international subsidiaries almost always opt for a relational or even paternalistic model of management. Indeed, this model allows a gain in confidence and the establishement of strong relationships between the expats and the locals, and between volunteers and employees. The latter model also helps to react or deal with the complexity of an unstable local context (civil war, hatred and ethnic conflicts, distrust versus foreigners, oral tradition culture, lack of separation between work and family life, lack of some skills in the labor market and poverty of the population).
Beyond the local constraints, pressure from the Headquarters, and the donors' requirements often result in the evolution of the business model implemented during the establishment period. But toward what model is moving the subsidiary, why, how and what are the implications for HRM practices? This is the series of questions we try to answer throughout this work.
To get there, we pay special attention to the power games, the identification of the most influential players, the relationships, the mechanisms of prevention and / or of conflict
management and the mobilization around the common goal. Our study shows that the managers of subsidiaries have two possible choices of a position: control logic or adaptation logic. The results of our research argue for the second option to be the most favorable to take into consideration the local context and to contribute to the emergence of consistent and very innovative HRM practices. Our work shows that the model based on the adaptation logic is more effective when the appropriation of the Headquarters rule by the members of the subsidiary is dominated by joint regulation mechanisms, and when the management of the subsidiary is polyphonic for what concerns managing the evolution of contextual factors. In fact, the latter mechanisms lead to the organization, in due time, to a genuine process of organizational change. The polyphonic style is generally characterized by flexibility, autonomy, accountability, collaboration, cooperation within teams and the search for compromise to satisfy the essential interests of the different stakeholders, including those at Headquarters.
However, we note that some managers, guided by rational mimicry derived from the culture of their country of origin and their experience elsewhere, tried control-based management resulting in the domination of regulatory mechanisms either autonomous or controlled. Our observation is that the control-based management model leads the subsidiary in a logic of submission or circumvention of the rules and practices developed by the parent company. This management model quickly faces major resistance from certain groups of stakeholders who feel that their interests are threatened. For example, internal conflicts occur in these subsidiaries at the expense of the cooperation and the achievement of desired results.
Highlighting the importance of the local context and the relationships Headquarters- subsidiaries together with the role of the management style in the evolution of HRM practices in the local management of international NGOs working in unstable and specific context (land and sector insufficiently studied up to now), this study brings a great contribution to international management and intercultural management theory in general and sub-Saharan Africa in particular.