International Journal on Criminology Volume 4, Number 2, Winter 2016 | Page 104

International Journal on Criminology
matters of security. The evolution of the legislation since 2013 requires OIVs to also
be capable of withstanding a natural disaster such as the once-a-century flooding of
the Seine, for example.
Although security itself has been little studied, the situation of the person,
the director of security, has received a bit more attention and existing works confirm
the importance of the director of security in current arrangements for public security.
Lund Petersen (2013) therefore sees in him a sort of hybrid manager, whose role is
halfway between the private interests of his employer and those of the State with
responsibility for ensuring public security. He is then in the front line of protecting
the economic assets of the nation and is thus a partial extension of public power.
This vision is confirmed by Ocqueteau (2011) who sees in this ability to work for
two worlds apparently distant from each other one of the most important skills of
security managers of large companies. The conclusion of these different contributions
is that the role of director of security/safety remains vague and still poorly known. The
professional identity of the holders of these posts also suffers from this lack of clarity.
Institutionalization in Action
Faced with the evolution of their security and legal environments, have
companies finally subjected their organizations to making that movement toward
differentiation which will lead them to make security a completely separate function,
a role undertaken to the exclusion of any other activity? The survey on which we
are here basing our findings was carried out between May and September 2015. A
questionnaire was sent to 150 security managers or people responsible for security
in large French companies. Thanks to a return rate of almost 50%, we are able to
present the results from 73 respondents. The sample questioned here remains very
representative of large French companies: their staffing is substantial as only 11 of
the 73 respondent companies have a workforce of less than 5,000. On the other hand,
85% of them (N=62) have more than 10,000 employees and 42.5% (N=31) have over
50,000. According to INSEE, only some 50 French companies have over 20,000
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