For a communicational analysis of international management standards in societal security

Abstract : This paper presents a communicational analysis of international management standards in the field of private and public organizations. We study the new communication policies and strategies transmitted by these texts. This work (part of the NOTSEG project, 2009-2012, financed by the French National Research Agency) concerns the international standardization of societal security. The aim of this project is to study management standards (international, European and national) in relation to the institutions and the stakeholders who produce and use them. We attempt to uncover the organizational and social changes which are recommended. This proposal aims to show how a communicational approach to organizations can contribute to the analysis of these normative texts. An additional aim is to suggest a methodology to carry out this study. The normative texts are analysed in connection with the institutions and the interested parties who put them forth and use them. This analysis throws light on the communication strategies (in particular the strategies of influence) of the protagonists in their relationships with the new organisational politics they promote, and which are revealed in the texts. We will illustrate this approach with an excerpt from the corpus composed of resilience and business continuity standards.