Ethics as Enacted Knowledge in Public Sector Organizations. A Sociological account of Academics’ and Prison governors’ work in complex and ambiguous situations

In the last 30 years, french-speaking Belgian public school and prison sectors have regularly been concerned by three types of recurrent phenomenons of professional shortage , high absentism rates and frequent strikes. Scarce material resources, inadequate professional training, lack of professional stability, rigid employment rules in the specific labour market sector, and wages claims are both a cause and a consequence of these institutional issues (Dumay, 2014 : Dubois, 2007). In the absence of effective policy results over the last ten years (Dubois, 2018), this research draws on three questions: how do school and prison governors cope with complex and ambiguous situations of absenteism and insufficient resources? Is social dialogue (Baccari and Simoni, 2008) still effective and efficient? And what are the organizational strategies locally adopted in the schools and prisons that could adapt their working context and preserve both professional well-being and services’ quality?