Camille Cherkaoui

Composition of the Jury

Abstract

Well-being and unhappiness are topical issues, whether in the mainstream media or in management literature. Debates on unhappiness in the workplace have begun to gain momentum in recent years, eventually reaching the National Assembly and leading to a growing body of public reports on the subject of unhappiness. This is concrete evidence of the importance this issue has taken on and the government’s growing involvement in addressing it (CAS, 2009; Copé et al., 2010; Dériot, 2010; Lachmann et al., 2010). Recognizing stress and suffering in today’s workplaces and seeking to improve employees’ well-being is by no means fanciful. However, while there is an abundance of literature on workplace distress, it remains difficult to define workplace well-being (Richard, 2012). Consequently, the aim of this doctoral dissertation is to conduct a comprehensive study of well-being and unwell-being at work, as well as the links between them. The goal is to propose a research model that is as comprehensive as possible and adapted to the current organizational context. To achieve this, two qualitative studies will be conducted: one among a population of nurses, using the immersion method; The second study, conducted through life narrative interviews, involved employees and civil servants in the Île-de-France (IDF) region. A second phase consisted of quantitative studies. Four studies were conducted: the first (n = 317), based on several companies; a second (n = 350), specific to managers in a context of change; a third study among local government employees (n = 1,065); and a final study focusing on a specific local government entity (n = 1,374). Consequently, this dissertation contributes to a better understanding of the concept of well-being at work and highlights the various models and theories surrounding both concepts, while emphasizing the points of intersection between well-being and ill-being at work. The aim is to develop various managerial recommendations to improve well-being at work, while also suggesting avenues for future research.