Les facteurs déterminants de la concertation économique

This research aims to shed light on the determining factors of economic concertation. Specifically, it pursues three main goals. First, we define the notion of social dialogue and associated terms such as concertation, consultation, tripartism, partnership and collective bargaining. Second, we review the state of social dialogue in Quebec, describing its historical evolution, the actors involved, the themes addressed and the existing forums for dialogue. Some comparisons are also made between the culture of concertation in Quebec and elsewhere (Canada, United States, Europe).  In addition, this overview of the different forums for social dialogue provides a better understanding of concertation related to economic development, in particular with regard to planning economic development in a socially responsible way (Papadakis, 2010). Third and lastly, we present an empirical analysis of the determining factors of economic development.  This research was conducted in two stages. First, we mapped the existing forums for social dialogue in Québec and collected data from them. This first stage also allowed us to identify the determining factors of concertation generally referred to in the literature. To better understand these factors and improve our analytical model, exploratory interviews were conducted with actors of social dialogue in Quebec and France concerning their involvement in this process. These combined actions allowed us to create an analytical model of the determining factors of economic concertation.  During the second stage, we studied two concertation organizations in Québec. Within these organizations, we met union, employer and government actors. Interviews were used as our method of data collection (Gavard-Perret, Gotteland, Haon & Jolibert, 2008), particularly semi-structured interviews with the actors. This type of interview allows the respondents to answer the questions more fully and possibly bring new elements to the model. The method of matching logic was used to analyze their answers (Yin, 1994) and compare them to our research proposals.  On a theoretical level, neo-institutionalist theories enriched our observations regarding the creation and development of institutions of social dialogue. The analysis of our results confirmed the theory regarding the creation of these institutions, that is, that actors identify a problem and perceive their involvement as a way to solve it. Our analysis also confirmed the notion of the dominant actor and the dual role of the government actor.  Lastly, our research confirmed our analytical model and revealed new factors. The interviews brought out nuances and precisions concerning the determining factors found in the literature. Our analysis confirmed three of our proposals and partially confirmed two others. More specifically, it confirmed the real intention of the parties to work together, the presence of common interests and the participation of the state. It revealed that trust is a necessary element of concertation. In support of previous work, we observed that trust between the actors has a positive influence on economic concertation. However, we observed a certain level of distrust between the actors given their role as representatives of organizations with differing interests. In order for concertation to proceed, the level of trust must be higher than the level of distrust. Our observations also brought out links between the presence of some determining factors and the results achieved through concertation, but it was impossible to determine their relative importance. Therefore, it is not possible to assert that the presence of several determining factors will have a greater impact on the results of the concertation process.   Our research makes an important contribution to the literature by bringing out new determining factors of concertation. Our interviews showed that “ego control” on the part of the actors involved and the establishment of mechanisms for integrating new actors are important factors. Our research improved our model by identifying some sub-factors that enriched our study of the determining factors of concertation. However, the limited number of organizations studied and the significant cultural differences between them limit the generalizability of our results.

Keyphrases: employer actor, government actor, union actor, social dialogue, concertation, economic concertation, determining factors