Olivier Torrès: From the PMU to the PM Party

Olivier Torrès has a way with words. This management professor at the University of Montpellier often describes himself asa “Normalien from a bistro”—meaning that he grew up in his family’s Tabary’s bar-tobacco shop-PMU in Sète and went on to attend the École normale supérieure (ENS) in Cachan. These two influences continue to shape his career today: from the former, he has retained a deep attachment to artisans, shopkeepers, farmers, and other small business owners; from the latter, he took his first steps into academic research, which still drives him today.

“At the ENS, SMEs were practically nonexistent. Everyone talked only about large companies. ‘A blind spot that, unfortunately, characterizes all major economic theories,’ emphasizes the professor, who points out that nearly 99.9% of companies in France are SMEs. ‘They’re everywhere except in the textbooks!’ The man who describes himself as an ‘SME specialist’ found his academic home in Montpellier, under the guidance of economist Michel Marchesnay, with whom he wrote his dissertation on the globalization strategies of SMEs.”

“The Unspoken and Unacknowledged Suffering of Employers”

Through this work, he has come to believe that what defines small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is a sense of closeness, in contrast to the remote management style found in large corporations. His affection for small business owners grows as he becomes more aware of the hardships they face at work.“I was taken aback by a series of suicides among SME executives,” he says, pulling a keepsake from his wallet—a small newspaper clipping from the “News in Brief” section headlined“Driven to Desperation, an Entrepreneur Takes His Own Life.” On the same day, *Midi Libre* devoted an entire page in its “Society” section to the suicide of an employee at a large corporation.“This difference in coverage prompted me to write, in 2009, an op-ed in *Le Monde* on ‘the unspoken and unacknowledged suffering of business owners,’” says Olivier Torres. His op-ed struck a chord in the media and sparked a debate on the subject.

An alert system

“To fill a gap,” the researcher founded the Amarok Observatory in 2008 to monitor the health of small business owners:“One of my major findings from the many studies I’ve conducted over nearly 20 years has been to show that entrepreneurship, despite its challenges, is also good for your health!”Pathogenic factors (stress, workload, loneliness, uncertainty, etc.) are largely offset by salutogenic factors—those that are good for health—such as resilience, control over one’s own destiny, and adaptability.

“Starting a business always adds depth to the founder’s soul; it is a vocation of commitment, like all professions that leave a mark: artists, authors, researchers… In fact, the word ‘firm’ literally means ‘signature.’” Quoting Jean-Paul Sartre, he declares himself an existentialist: everyone is the master of their own destiny, and the entrepreneur above all. In German, an entrepreneur is an *Existenzgründer* —which literally means “founder of existence”—says the author, who is currently working on a book on the subject.  

His empathy for SME owners also drives him to take action on their behalf. His research has shown that 6.5% of them are at risk of severe burnout (Screening for Burnout and Preventing Burnout Among SME Leaders, 2019). Through Amarok, he is implementing a system to alert employers to signs of workplace distress. The association, which operates on its own funds, works in partnership with about 100 occupational health services and professional federations such as the French Building Federation (FFB) and the National Federation of Road Transporters (FNTR).

^864th conference

Through these tools, entrepreneurs are invited to rate themselves on scales measuring stress and satisfaction levels—the “entrepreneur’s stressometer and satisfactionometer.” If a person’s distress exceeds a certain threshold,“a psychologist receives an alert and can speak with the individual to refer them to support services offered by Amarok’s partner organizations ,” explains Olivier Torrès. These organizations (60,000 Rebonds, Second Souffle, and Re-Créer) are brought together under the Rebond portal, which won the European Grand Prize for Business Promotion in 2020–2021.

More recently, Olivier Torrès has also shared his work with farmers and local elected officials (AtUM and Health, Mayors of France, October 10, 2024). A true champion of the cause of self-employed workers, he has just delivered his^864th lecture on the subject. While he has received several awards, the Julien Marchesnay Prize, which he received in 2024, is particularly meaningful to him:“a lifetime achievement award that marks my place in the Montpellier school of SME studies.” This year, he will also be awarded the insignia of Knight of the National Order of Merit. A title that suits someone who never stops traveling far and wide to promote his cause.