Associated Researcher

How to articulate economic production of appreciation, dominant concern in the companies, and production of social appreciation, dominant concern in the associative world? The place taken by associations and ONG in the economic and social life leads them to face economic logic: receiving financings of the State, they must return accounts according to procedures ' similar to those of the companies; proposing services they are subjected to the invitations to tender and competition. The companies are brought to worry about their societal role and the direction which find their clean paid with their work. This question is thorough on the example of associations of popular education, where contradiction is exacerbated. They are 145.000 in France and experience a strong development as for examples the centers of leisure’s or the centers social. The activities which they propose became services that any local community must propose. These associations receive many public financings thus, which constitutes for them an economic base and a social recognition welcomes; but that modifies their model of organization because they are forced by the wishes of the financers, who go even until formatting the educational offer. Their success is paradoxically a factor of crisis of identity. They then undergo contradictory pressures which can lead them to give up their activities, to redeploy in a less constrained field or to disappear. It can be also aligned on the commercial company or the public utility. The thesis explores another exit to reconcile militant spirit and administrative spirit. It shows how an association with militant vocation can change, through a chaotic and conflict evolution, by integrating management tools to manage its economic activity, while creating specific tools to give again force with its social project