Management issues of interstitial professional digital spaces: Introduction to a systematic approach

Professional digital social networks, defined as interstitial professional digital spaces (IPDS) in this research, arouse, because of their emergent and ambivalent characteristics, empirical and academic questions. From an exploratory study conducted with an inductive and qualitative approach about the IPDS specified in the human resources management of the French public territorial sector, this research suggests, firstly, a systemic conceptualization in analysis of the IPDS's functionaries, and second, an analysis of its management functionalities in the development of new HRM practices in this sector. Based on the autopoietic system theory of Niklas Luhmann (1928-1998), this research proposes a theoretical framework for analysis whereas the IPDS is a system with self-maintenance and a selfrenewal process through communications between individuals who are both contributors and consumers, assembled by digital tools in interstitial spaces. The results stemming from the observation data show that, for HR professionals, IPDS are above all complementary professional tool with different features which can be illustrated as a public garden for broadening the mind, a window for observation, a mirror for self-examination, and a transmission belt for articulating HRM and SI. This work ends with reflection on the IPDS's potentialities in a development of HR practices in the public territorial sector.