Abstract

This paper proposes to shed light on the organization of work in a specific work environment; these are the craft businesses of ancestral trades. This category of companies, which is most often seen as a survival of the past, continues to coexist today with modern companies characterizing industrial companies. Based on the results of an empirical study taking a sociological perspective and conducted in Tunisia, this paper envisages identifying the organizational characteristics of this type of companies, especially those organizational structure and organizational units. The aim of such an exercise is by no means to draw a comparison between this category of companies and the companies resulting from the industrial revolution. But it is to see the basic form of the organization of work insofar as this category of enterprises is a survival of the pre-industrial era. The results of the empirical study clearly show that craft enterprises of ancestral trades embody a well-distinguished organizational logic.

Keywords: Craft enterprise; Ancestral trade; Work organization; Organizational structure; Organizational unity