Outdoor management development (OMD) is a controversial management development technique generating revealing perspectives on potential transformations in embedded practices in cultural contexts. OMD takes place in outdoor (mountainous) locations and embraces outdoor pursuits (hiking, climbing and canoeing) and `alternative'styled activities, for example, using theatre or story-telling. `Alternative' here makes a contrast with notional mainstream British and French management development approaches. Using field research carried out in the UK and France, the article explores why OMD and its `alternative' human resource development approaches, so readily engaged in British corporate settings, have been less applied in French organizational contexts. The article argues that, relative to the UK, the use of the outdoors in France for the development of managers or cadres is significantly less extensive and develops and explores reasons why this may be the case.
L'Outdoor Management Development comme transformation organisationnelle : une étude de l'expérience anglo-française dans l'application d'approches alternatives au développement des ressources humaines. (Peter Stokes) L'Outdoor Management Development (OMD) est une technique assez controversée du développement managérial qui génère des perspectives intéressantes sur les transformations potentielles de pratiques ancrées dans des contextes culturels. L'OMD est un ensemble d'activités qui se passent le plus souvent en extérieur (marche, escalade, canoë) ou alors d'activités plus culturelles, voire alternatives, comme le théâtre et le conte. Nous utilisons l'adjectif `alternatif' ici pour établir un contraste avec les approches de développement managérial plus traditionnelles, qu'elles soient britanniques ou françaises. A l'aide d'études de terrain effectuées au Royaume-Uni et en France, cet article explore pourquoi l'OMD et ses approches alternatives de développement des ressources humaines, si aisément adoptés dans l'entreprise en Grande Bretagne, le sont moins en France. Cet article prétend que l'utilisation d'activités en extérieur en France pour le développement des cadres est nettement moins important qu'au Royaume Uni ; il se penche ensuite sur les raisons d'une telle différence de pratiques entre la France et le R-U.
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