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In a context of rapid and sudden changes, business failures and restructuring are characterised by their recurrent nature. This leads to multiple career paths marked by frequent and diverse professional transitions. Since work is central to our definition of ourselves, i.e. our identity, particularly in Western societies, career transitions are inextricably linked to various identity issues. A break in employment, especially when it is sudden and involuntary, marks the start of a professional transition that is just as impromptu and sudden, generating a break in the individual's identity. This effect is exacerbated in individuals who have achieved a degree of professional success, as is the case with managers. The individual is thus engaged in a process of identity work, which can be affected, or regulated, by the discourses that surround him or her. These give people directions to follow, intentionally or not, as they work on their identity. In the end, the individual gives concrete expression to this identity work by creating a discourse about them, which enables them to present themselves to their peers. In response to the increasing number of career transitions and job losses, the public authorities are focusing on support services that are becoming increasingly privatised. These involve individuals in an introspective assessment with the aim of creating a discourse about themselves, frequently use a reflective approach such as coaching, and some even use tools that directly incorporate the identity issues involved in professional transitions. Furthermore, when professional transitions are supported, they can be considered highly institutionalised. This has an impact on the individual’s identity work, since the latter is carried out in contact with the outplacement discourses. These discourses also convey a certain relationship to career and work, which can colour the individual's identity with particular nuances. The aim of this thesis is to fill a gap in the academic literature in management studies, namely the concrete effects of outplacement support on the process by which individuals’ (re)define themselves. To do so, we first used an exploratory qualitative methodology to study outplacement support in a French context, and then an in-depth longitudinal qualitative methodology to follow individuals through their outplacement procedures. Our results contribute to the concept of identity work by showing the regulating nature of outplacement support, which, because of its high degree of standardisation, raises the question, already present in the literature on coaching, of outplacement practices as tools of normalisation. Our findings also corroborate the importance of self-narratives in the context of career transition. The discourses around this self-presentation element are, however, highly institutionalised and standardised, which accompanies the previous questions about the potential normalising effects of outplacement services. This research also highlights the widespread adoption of a rather contractual, Anglo-Saxon conception of work, which suggests a ‘managerialization’ of the relationship to work. This raises the question of a porous and standardised relationship to professional activity. Finally, this doctoral work invites us to review or update the developments on professional identity, or on the relationship to work, of certain authors from the point of view of variables such as gender. Research perspectives are also emerging around the variables that can affect an individual's permeability to outplacement support. Finally, the possibility appears to study political discourses, and the reforms carried out around careers, transitions and periods of non-employment, through the prism of the relationship to work conveyed or the potential effects on individuals' identities.