Call for Papers – JHMO 2026

The 31st JHMO will be held on the ESSCA campus in Boulogne-Billancourt on 26 and 27 March 2026.

To download the call for papers, click here: JHMO2026_CallForPapers

For over a century, the name “Boulogne-Billancourt” has been inevitably associated with the Île Seguin and the Renault factories. Acquired by Louis Renault in 1919, this island parcel saw the birth of the car company’s industrial liner. More than 30,000 employees worked there in the 1930s, producing the famous 4CV, 4L and, in the 1980s, its van version. Then production came to an abrupt halt: the industrial edifice was no longer adapted to the industrial imperatives of the 90s. Renault Billancourt closed on 31 March 1992.

This story echoes more current issues. Since the 1970s, many countries in Europe, including France, have been undergoing a process of deindustrialisation that is both slow and violent. Deindustrialisation and the structural transformation of companies was the theme of the JHMO 2021, which we propose to expand at the 31st JHMO (Entreprise et Société, 2023). Manufacturing industry now accounts for just 11% of French GDP. The tertiarisation of the economy, massive relocations and the low competitiveness of wage costs, public policies that have chosen to accompany the decline while placing the burden of consumer stimulus plans on companies, are all factors that explain this weakening of the manufacturing industry. In 2024, more than 66,000 businesses went bankrupt in France, the highest number since at least 2009, according to the recently published annual report by BPCE observatory. This high number of business failures is linked to a context of economic slowdown, inflation and rising interest rates, also marked by uncertainty in terms of economic policy. In December 2024, the outlook for industrial production fell to ‘its lowest level for almost ten years, excluding the health crisis’, according to data published by INSEE. There will be more plant closures than openings this year.

The history of Renault, retraced in particular in the works of Fridenson (1972) and, more recently, Costa-Lascoux et al. (2007), raises a number of questions which will be at the heart of this 31st JHMO:

• The relationship between the factory and its territory: stories of outsourcing, delocalisation, relocation and even reindustrialization
• Strategies, technological innovations and industrial trajectories
• Industrial legacies: socio-economic, environmental and territorial issues
• The specific nature of factory work
• Filmed representation and propaganda

More generally, proposals for papers at the crossroads between history and management sciences are welcome, as are approaches from other human and social sciences or from ecology.

As in previous editions, proposals for papers that do not fall within this theme but examine management issues from a historical perspective will also be welcome. The emphasis here will be on new and original contributions.

The JHMO will begin with a doctoral workshop on 25 March at ESSCA’s Boulogne-Billancourt campus. This workshop is open to doctoral students in history interested in a subject in management sciences and to doctoral students in management sciences adopting a historical approach.

Interested doctoral students must provide a document of no more than ten pages specifying their field of research (theme, research questions), the theoretical framework or theoretical articulation of the thesis, their methodological approach, their main sources and bibliographical references and, where applicable, their initial results. PhD students at the beginning of their thesis are encouraged to participate. It is of course possible to apply for thesis tutoring and to propose a paper.

Nicolas Guilhot

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