Fany Sardenne
email: fany.sardenne@ird.fr

François Le Loc'h

Nathalie Bodin

Jean-Hervé Mve-Beh

Jean-Marie Munaron

Jean-Daniel Mbega

Aimé Roger Nzigou

Oumar Sadio

Hélène Budzinski

Christophe Leboulanger

Baseline

Keywords: Contaminants, Fish, Mangrove, Marine protected area, Mollusks Highlights

Akanda National Park (ANP) is composed of mangrove ecosystems bordering Libreville, Gabon's capital.

The contamination of aquatic resources from the ANP by persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and trace metals (TMs) was never evaluated. To provide a basis for their monitoring in the ANP, five species (two fish, two mollusks, and one crustacean) were analyzed from three sampling sites in 2017. Contamination levels for POPs and TMs were below maximum acceptable limits for seafood, including Cd and Pb. No DDT was found in any sample. Inter-specific differences were more obvious than the differences among sites, although the results may be biased by an unbalanced sampling design. The oyster Crassostrea gasar was the most contaminated species, making this species a good candidate to assess environmental contamination in the area. The studied species also contained essential elements, such as Fe, Zn and Mn at interesting levels in a nutritional point of view.

Akanda National Park (ANP), Gabon, covering an area of about 540 km² of which 46% is sea water [START_REF] Aldous | Mapping complex coastal wetland mosaics in Gabon for informed ecosystem management: use of object-based classification[END_REF], extends northeast and east of the capital Libreville (ca. 1 million inhabitants in 2023). Most of the ANP is composed of mangrove forests of Avicennia nitida, Rhizophora harrisonii and Rhizophora racemosa [START_REF] Lebigre | Les marais maritimes du Gabon et de Madagascar : contribution géographique à l'étude d'un milieu naturel tropical[END_REF], mudflats, seagrass beds, and underwater bedrock. ANP was created in 2002 and is a classified Ramsar wetland site since 2007 due to its importance for migratory shorebirds and marine turtles. In the context of ANP biodiversity protection regulations (e.g. restrictions on the harvesting and gathering of certain natural resources; [START_REF] Yobo | Evolution of policies and legal frameworks governing the management of forest and National Parks resources in Gabon[END_REF], autochthonous communities are allowed to fish in the area and consume fish products (Gabonese people consume more than 30 kg of fish per year per person; FAO, 2022). However, the proximity to the capital city with a growing population and the important extractive industries of Gabon, such as offshore oil exploitation, manganese and gold mining, exposes the ANP to increasing anthropic pressures. Some of these pressures were recently documented at the microbiological level [START_REF] Leboulanger | Urban inputs of fecal bacteria to the coastal zone of Libreville, Gabon, Central Western Africa[END_REF] and there are no studies reported on the contamination of aquatic resources by persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and trace metals (TMs). These pollutants generally enter mangroves from urban and agricultural runoff, industrial effluents, navigation and recreational use of water bodies, chemical discharges, domestic sewage, landfill leaching and mining activities [START_REF] Peters | Ecotoxicology of tropical marine ecosystems[END_REF]. As a result, pollution levels vary considerably from one mangrove ecosystem to another [START_REF] Kulkarni | Metals in mangrove ecosystems and associated biota: A global perspective[END_REF][START_REF] Zhang | Heavy metal and organic contaminants in mangrove ecosystems of China: a review[END_REF].

POPs are compounds of anthropogenic origin that are persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic, and can travel far from emission sources. Regulated POPs are those included in the United Nations Stockholm Convention, which aims to protect human health and the environment from their effects. They include among others polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) such as dichlorodiphenyl-trichloroethane and its metabolites (DDTs) or hexachlorocyclohexanes (HCHs), and brominated flame retardants such as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs). TMs are natural inorganic elements released into all environmental compartments by natural sources such as volcanism and by the aforementioned anthropogenic activities. Some TMs such as Cu, Mn and Zn are essentials for the proper functioning of organisms at a certain concentration, and become deficient or toxic at too low or too high concentrations. Others elements such as Cd, Pb and Hg are toxic for organisms at any concentration [START_REF] Mason | Trace metals in aquatic systems[END_REF]. Long-term exposure to POPs or TMs results in adverse health effects in organisms, including wildlife and humans (e.g. [START_REF] Dietz | Current state of knowledge on biological effects from contaminants on arctic wildlife and fish[END_REF][START_REF] Krönke | Persistent organic pollutants in pregnant women potentially affect child development and thyroid hormone status[END_REF][START_REF] Vonderheide | Polybrominated diphenyl ethers: Causes for concern and knowledge gaps regarding environmental distribution, fate and toxicity[END_REF].

Studies in West and Central African countries have reported mixed results regarding mangrove contamination. Mangrove sediments of Cameroon contained polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon, PCBs and OCPs including DDT and metabolites [START_REF] Mbusnum | Persistent organic pollutants in sediments of the Wouri Estuary Mangrove, Cameroon: Levels, patterns and ecotoxicological significance[END_REF]. Mangrove water from an asphyxiated swamp of Nigeria also contained high levels of Zn, Ni and Pb [START_REF] Essien | Heavy metal burdens in patches of asphyxiated swamp areas within the Qua Iboe estuary mangrove ecosystem[END_REF]. Levels of DDTs and HCHs above 10 ng/g were found in clams and crabs from a Nigerian's mangrove estuary [START_REF] Oyo-Ita | Organochlorine pesticides in sedimentdwelling animals from mangrove areas of the Calabar river, SE Nigeria[END_REF]. In contrast, mollusks from Senegal's mangrove revealed low levels of OCPs, PCBs, PBDEs and TMs below the maximum permissible concentrations established for food contaminants to protect human health, except for Cd [START_REF] Bodin | Assessment of trace metal contamination in mangrove ecosystems from Senegal, West Africa[END_REF][START_REF] Bodin | Are exploited mangrove molluscs exposed to Persistent Organic Pollutant contamination in Senegal, West Africa?[END_REF][START_REF] Sidoumou | Heavy metal concentrations in molluscs from the Senegal coast[END_REF]. Although in general trace organic and metal contamination was low, these mollusks were consistently 2-3 times more contaminated with POPs (particularly PCBs congeners CB-153, CB-138 and CB-18) at the end of the rainy season, due to higher accumulation of lipids during the pre-reproductive period and to leaching of pesticide residues from inland to the marine ecosystem [START_REF] Bodin | Are exploited mangrove molluscs exposed to Persistent Organic Pollutant contamination in Senegal, West Africa?[END_REF][START_REF] Otchere | Organochlorines (PCBs and pesticides) in the bivalves Anadara (Senilia) senilis, Perna perna and Crassostrea tulipa from the lagoons of Ghana[END_REF]. Several factors other than habitat or season are sources of variability in the contamination of biota. In particular trophic level, generally estimated though nitrogen isotopic compositions, is related to biomagnified compounds such as CB-153 and organic Hg [START_REF] Bayen | Persistent organic pollutants in mangrove food webs in Singapore[END_REF][START_REF] Harmelin-Vivien | Differential biomagnification of PCB, PBDE, Hg and Radiocesium in the food web of the European hake from the NW Mediterranean[END_REF][START_REF] Souza | Trophic transfer of emerging metallic contaminants in a neotropical mangrove ecosystem food web[END_REF], lipid content is associated with PCBs and OCPs [START_REF] Bodin | PCB contamination in fish community from the Gironde Estuary (France): Blast from the past[END_REF][START_REF] Jørgensen | Influence of lipid status on tissue distribution of the persistent organic pollutant octachlorostyrene in Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus)[END_REF], and age and metabolization capacities of the organisms determine the assimilation efficiency and elimination rate of many such contaminants [START_REF] Gray | Biomagnification in marine systems: the perspective of an ecologist[END_REF][START_REF] Croizier | Significance of metallothioneins in differential cadmium accumulation kinetics between two marine fish species[END_REF][START_REF] Sussarellu | Differences in chemical contaminants bioaccumulation and ecotoxicology biomarkers in Mytilus edulis and Mytilus galloprovincialis and their hybrids[END_REF].

The current status of contamination of marine biota from the ANP was never evaluated. The purpose of this study was therefore (i) to determine its levels of contamination for representative organisms with different feeding habits and positions in the food web, and (ii) to provide a basis for monitoring future trends in POPs and TMs contamination in the area. For this, POPs and TMs analyses of five species from three sites of the ANP were compared and complemented by analyses of carbon and nitrogen isotopic compositions and elemental ratio (δ 13 C and δ 15 N values, C:N ratio) to help interpreting the contamination data.

The following methodology was put in place to meet these objectives. To cover a representative area of the ANP, organisms were collected at three sites: (1) Babylone, a locality in the Ntisini channel 8 km upstream from Libreville, (2) Bambouchine, a fishing settlement located at the bottom of Mondah Bay at 10 km east of Libreville, and (3) Moka, an undisturbed site at 20 km north of Libreville and the closest to the ocean (Fig. 1). Sea surface temperature is globally higher and less variable at Babylone (circa 30°C) than at the two other sites (26.5°C and 27.5°C) and oxygen percent and salinity are similar at the three sites [START_REF] Mve Beh | Spatial and temporal structure of the fish assemblage in Akanda National Park (Gabon), an equatorial mangrove estuary[END_REF]. In order to be as conservative as possible in terms of contamination, organisms were collected at the end of the major rainy season, between May 17 th and 22 nd , 2017. Five species with different feeding modes and ecologies were considered: the oyster Crassostrea gasar (filter-feeder), the gastropod Pugilina morio (scavenger), the estuarine fishes Pseudotolithus elongatus and Ilisha africana (ichthyophagous and planktivorous species, respectively), and the crab Callinectes pallidus (opportunistic benthic predator). Organisms were collected by hand or bought from artisanal anglers a few hours after capture for fish, then determined using identification keys [START_REF] Carpenter | The living marine resources of the Western Central Atlantic. Food and agriculture organization of the United Nations Rome[END_REF]FAO, 2016;[START_REF] Stiassny | Fresh and brackish water fishes of Lower Guinea, West-Central Africa[END_REF]. After size measurement and tissue sampling (dorsal white muscle for fish, whole flesh for the other species), samples were freeze-dried for 72 h and homogenized with a ball grinder. For fish, the quantity of powder obtained allowed the analysis of TMs and POPs on the same individual. For the other species, composite samples of two to six individuals were made for one or the other analysis (Table 1).

Bulk compositions in carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes (δ 13 C and δ 15 N) and elemental ratio C:N (i.e. proxy for carbon storage in the form of lipids or glycogen) were analyzed on a Flash EA2000 coupled to a Delta V Plus IRMS at the PSO, University of Brest, France. Analytical variability was ±0.15‰ for both δ 13 C and δ 15 N values. C:N ratio was determined from % element weight (Table 1). of Canada SLRS6 and DORM2, which displayed mean element recoveries ranging from 98% to 135% and 82% to 120%, respectively. TMs concentrations were expressed in µg/g and ng/g on a dry weight basis.

Regarding statistical comparisons, log transformed concentrations of POPs and TMs were compared among sites and among species with no interaction due to the unbalanced sampling design. Parametric tests ANOVA or ANOVA for censored data, i.e. when some values were <LOQ [START_REF] Helsel | Fabricating data: How substituting values for nondetects can ruin results, and what can be done about it[END_REF] were used when the normality of residuals was reached (Shapiro test > 0.05). Otherwise, nonparametric Kruskall-Wallis and post hoc Dunn tests, or Peto-Peto test with adjusted p-value for multiple comparisons for censored data [START_REF] Helsel | Fabricating data: How substituting values for nondetects can ruin results, and what can be done about it[END_REF] were used. Data analyses were carried out with R software 3.5.0 (R Core

Team, 2016) and NADA2 package [START_REF] Julian | NADA2: Data Analysis for Censored Environmental Data[END_REF]. As most concentration data were not normally distributed, they were presented as median ± interquartile range (IQR, i.e. the difference between the 75th and 25th percentiles of the data). Where specified, these were Kaplan-Meier estimates of the median and the interquartile range for censored data [START_REF] Helsel | Fabricating data: How substituting values for nondetects can ruin results, and what can be done about it[END_REF]. concentrations was detected among the three sites (χ 2 = 0.16, df=2, p = 0.926 and χ 2 = 2.01, df=2, p = 0.366, respectively) (Fig. 2B). Regarding less frequently detected POPs, only one individual of P. morio from Babylone contained quantifiable levels of CB-52 (3.0 ng/g) and CB-101 (3.9 ng/g) and two C. gasar from Babylone and Bambouchine contained quantifiable levels of BDE-47 (both 0.6 ng/g). The 10 studied TMs could be quantified in all samples, except Cd for three samples and Pb for one sample. Zn was the most abundant, followed by Fe and Cu, and Cd the least abundant TM (Fig. 4).

Regarding species, mollusks C. gasar and P. morio contained globally more TMs than the two fish species, with C. gasar containing the highest levels in all TMs except for As (highest in P. morio with 11.7±17.7 µg/g) (Fig. 4A). In particular, the levels of Cd and Pb in C. gasar (720±623 and 311±79 ng/g, respectively) were significantly higher than that in P. morio (34±8 and 146±96 ng/g), followed by that in I. africana (2±0 and 26±18 ng/g) and P. elongatus (<1 and 11±10 ng/g) (χ 2 = 44.8, df=4, p < 0.001 and χ 2 = 43.7, df=4, p < 0.001). Regarding sites, Cd was found in similar levels at the three sites (χ 2 = 5.3, df=2, p = 0.07) while Pb was higher at Babylone (171±101 ng/g) than at the two other sites (26±83 and 17±7 ng/g) (χ 2 = 8.8, df=2, p < 0.05) (Fig. 4B).

Fig4. Trace metals concentrations (median and IRQ) in µg/g dry weight for (A) four selected marine species and (B) three sampling sites from the Akanda National Park, Gabon, at the end of the major rainy season. Elements in red are toxic for organisms at any concentration. c = censored data with at least one value < LOQ.

To initiate a monitoring of POPs and TMs contamination in Akanda National Park, Gabon, five species (two fish, two mollusks, and one crustacean) were analyzed at three sites in 2017. Contamination levels of both POPs and TMs were low for all species. Industrial POPs (PCBs, PBDEs) were higher than pesticide POPs (DDTs) in all samples. Inter-specific differences were more obvious than the differences among sites, the oyster being the most contaminated species.

The oyster C. gasar occupied the lowest trophic position and was the most contaminated species in both POPs and TMs, suggesting that the studied contaminants are mainly associated with suspended organic matter (which only oyster of the 5 studied species feed on). PCB levels of C. gasar from the ANP were roughly equivalent to those measured in the Sine-Saloum mangrove swamp (Senegal) during the wet season (e.g. CB-153 concentration of 3.2-10.5 vs 8.7±0.5 ng/g here) [START_REF] Bodin | Are exploited mangrove molluscs exposed to Persistent Organic Pollutant contamination in Senegal, West Africa?[END_REF]. C. gasar was overall more contaminated by PCBs than P. morio while the opposite trend was highlighted in Senegal (e.g. CB-153 concentration in Senegal of 3.5-10.5 and 13.7-31.9 ng/g for C. gasar and P. morio, respectively ; [START_REF] Bodin | Are exploited mangrove molluscs exposed to Persistent Organic Pollutant contamination in Senegal, West Africa?[END_REF], which could be explained by a higher PCB contamination of the suspended matter on which C. gasar feeds in Gabon than in Senegal or, more likely, by differences in lipid content of organisms among regions. Indeed, based on bulk C:N and [START_REF] Post | Getting to the fat of the matter: models, methods and assumptions for dealing with lipids in stable isotope analyses[END_REF] equation, the average % lipids in C. gasar and P. morio in our study were 9.9% and 4.8% respectively, while in Senegal they were 9.3% and 11.5% [START_REF] Bodin | Are exploited mangrove molluscs exposed to Persistent Organic Pollutant contamination in Senegal, West Africa?[END_REF]. C. gasar from the ANP was about 10 times less contaminated by Cd and with similar levels in Pb than in Senegal [START_REF] Bodin | Assessment of trace metal contamination in mangrove ecosystems from Senegal, West Africa[END_REF][START_REF] Sidoumou | Heavy metal concentrations in molluscs from the Senegal coast[END_REF]; Table S1) and 5 times less contaminated by Cd than in a costal lagoon of Ivory coast [START_REF] Tuo | Seasonal variation in trace metal contents in oyster Crassostrea gasar from the Milliardaires Bay, Côte d'Ivoire[END_REF]; Table S1), where these contaminations seem to be mainly related to domestic and industrial discharges [START_REF] Diop | Assessment of trace metals contamination level, bioavailability and toxicity in sediments from Dakar coast and Saint Louis estuary in Senegal, West Africa[END_REF][START_REF] Tuo | Seasonal variation in trace metal contents in oyster Crassostrea gasar from the Milliardaires Bay, Côte d'Ivoire[END_REF]. For other elements, C. gasar showed concentrations equivalent to neighboring countries (Table S1) and to other mangrove regions (which are highly variable). Zinc levels, for example, are quite variable, being highest at the Bambouchine site (8805 µg/g dw): this is high compared with levels in bivalves from the Zhanjiang mangrove, China (< 75 µg/g dw; [START_REF] Zheng | Trophic transfer of heavy metals through aquatic food web in the largest mangrove reserve of China[END_REF] but similar to levels in oysters from the Cleverland mangrove, Australia (8253 µg/g dw; [START_REF] Jones | Zinc in Fish, Crabs, Oysters, and Mangrove Flora and Fauna from Cleveland Bay. Marine Pollution Bulletin, Sources, Fates and Consequences of Pollutants in the Great Barrier Reef[END_REF] or those from the Sine-Saloum mangrove estuary, Senegal (up to 2100 µg/g dw, [START_REF] Bodin | Assessment of trace metal contamination in mangrove ecosystems from Senegal, West Africa[END_REF].

The fish species P. elongatus and I. africana were also very low in contamination, despite their relatively high trophic level (between 3 and 4; Fishbase). In other Gulf of Guinea countries, similar observations of low contamination were obtained for per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances in P. elongatus [START_REF] Ekperusi | Prevalence of per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) in marine seafood from the Gulf of Guinea[END_REF] and for As, Cd and Pb in I. africana [START_REF] Eboh | Heavy metal contaminants and processing effects on the composition, storage stability and fatty acid profiles of five common commercially available fish species in Oron Local Government, Nigeria[END_REF], suggesting that for the time being these fish species may have little exposure to the various contaminants in this region (but see Pb of I. africana in Douala, Cameroon; Table S1). No DDT was found in any sample, whatever the species or the sampling site. a half-life of 8 months for p,p'-DDT in fish [START_REF] Binelli | DDT is still a problem in developed countries: the heavy pollution of Lake Maggiore[END_REF], this suggested no recent inputs of DDT from agricultural or sanitary regulation measures (e.g. Malaria prevention) and that the ANP was more exposed to industrial organochlorinated than to agricultural contaminants in 2017. However, the presence of p,p'-DDE (half-life of about 7 years in fish; [START_REF] Binelli | DDT is still a problem in developed countries: the heavy pollution of Lake Maggiore[END_REF] in almost all samples implied ancient uses of DDT near the ANP.

Overall, all the studied contaminants were below the maximum permitted levels set by world regulatory Alimentarius, 1995;European Commission Regulation, 2015). On the other hand, the two fish species under study have high commercial value and contain some essential elements, such as Fe, Zn and Mn, although at lower levels than mollusks. They are also high in omega-3 fatty acids, especially I. africana https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2023.116009 [START_REF] Eboh | Heavy metal contaminants and processing effects on the composition, storage stability and fatty acid profiles of five common commercially available fish species in Oron Local Government, Nigeria[END_REF][START_REF] Njinkoue | Proximate composition, mineral content and fatty acid profile of two marine fishes from Cameroonian coast: Pseudotolithus typus (Bleeker, 1863) and Pseudotolithus elongatus (Bowdich, 1825)[END_REF]. In the current state of toxicological knowledge and from a nutritional point of view, their consumption by autochthonous populations allowed to fish in the ANP could be recommended.

Monitoring of environmental contamination in the ANP can be based on C. gasar since it concentrates POPs and TMs better than the other organisms from the present study. Sessile filter feeders are commonly used to monitor contamination of the environment (e.g. [START_REF] Aguirre-Rubí | Assessment of ecosystem health disturbance in mangrove-lined Caribbean coastal systems using the oyster Crassostrea rhizophorae as sentinel species[END_REF][START_REF] Aminot | Levels and trends of synthetic musks in marine bivalves from French coastal areas[END_REF][START_REF] Santos | PCBs occurrence in marine bivalves and fish from Todos os Santos Bay, Bahia, Brazil[END_REF] and in particular through the International Mussel Watch program [START_REF] Farrington | Edward D. Goldberg's proposal of "the Mussel Watch": Reflections after 40years[END_REF], partly because of their low capacity to metabolize contaminants. At the same time, the main species exploited for human consumption must also be monitored, especially fish, as results obtained on C. gasar cannot be extrapolated to other species.

Furthermore, no site was more contaminated than the others, excepted for Pb and POPs diversity which were slightly higher at Babylone, located downstream from Libreville, but this result could reflect a bias in the sampling design since only mollusks were caught at this site. Monitoring of biota contamination should therefore include a more robust sampling design than the one implemented in this study, allowing in particular to test the interactions between sites and species on contamination levels and seasonal variations in contaminations and therefore make stronger consumption recommendations.

Difference in analyzed tissues (muscle for fish, whole body for the other species) as well as lipid content and lipid composition could also induce a bias in contaminant data [START_REF] Elskus | Chapter 4 Interactions between lipids and persistent organic pollutants in fish[END_REF][START_REF] Gray | Biomagnification in marine systems: the perspective of an ecologist[END_REF].

Using similar tissues across trophic levels and expressing the POP contents in g of lipids may well help to reduce variabilities in contaminant data within organisms (although from a human consumption perspective, contents in g of fresh weight might be more appropriate).

Finally, although all the studied contaminants were found in low concentrations, the toxicological assessment was incomplete and these results should be taken with caution. For example, the content in emerging organic contaminants and Hg had not been evaluated, nor has the speciation of metals (proportion methylmercury, the most toxic forms of Hg). Hg in particular could contaminate the area due to gold panning in Gabon and needs to be rapidly assessed. Indeed, although artisanal gold production is relatively small in Gabon, in Africa it uses proportionally more Hg than in other parts of the world [START_REF] Seccatore | An estimation of the artisanal small-scale production of gold in the world[END_REF]. In addition, it would be interesting to monitor other micronutrients (e.g. fatty acids, vitamins and selenium) in the marine resources consumed by local populations, in order to assess the benefit-risk balance for the consumption of these species in the ANP, and to monitor the abiotic compartments (water and sediment in particular) to identify the exposure sources the marine organisms.

To conclude, the ANP's marine resources appeared fairly low in contamination in 2017 and they did not present any toxicity risk for human consumption associated with the studied contaminants. This seemingly low contamination must be moderated, however, because analyzing Hg and the emerging POPs could draw a different pattern of seafood contamination in the area. As environmental contamination also increases with anthropization, and considering the frantic pace of coastal urban extension, it is necessary to set up a monitoring of these contaminations possibly using oysters as sentinels.

Fig. 1 .

 1 Fig. 1. Location of the three sampling sites (Bambouchine, Babylone and Moka) for organisms of the Akanda National Park, Gabon. Green areas are under national park protection status, with buffer zone delimited by dashed green line. Marine protected areas are delimited by solid (core reserve) and dashed (buffer) blue lines. The current extent of Libreville agglomeration corresponds to the grey area.

Fig. 2 .

 2 Fig. 2. Persistent organic pollutants concentrations (median values) in ng/g dry weight for (A) five selected marine species and (B) three sampling sites from the Akanda National Park, Gabon, at the end of the major rainy season. Where specified, compounds were > LOQ in only one sample (n=1). c = censored data with at least one value < LOQ.

  The most frequently detected POPs were p-p'DDE (quantifiable in 96% of samples except one P. elongatus from Moka), CB-153 (quantifiable in 92% of samples except two P. elongatus from Moka and Bambouchine) and CB-138 (quantifiable in 65% of samples). PCBs congeners were higher than DDTs congeners in all samples, and CB-153 accounted for 17.4 to 89.2 % of all POPs in P. morio and I. africana, respectively. Regarding species, C. gasar had the most diverse POPs profile (eight POPs in more than two samples) and was the most contaminated species on average: ∑PCBs was higher in C. gasar

	(19.5±3.2 ng/g) and lower in P. elongatus (3.1±6.4 ng/g) and P. morio (2.0±2.1 ng/g) (χ 2 = 10.3, df=4, p
	< 0.05) (Fig. 2A). In particular, concentration of CB-153 in C. gasar (8.7±0.5 ng/g) was similar to

C. pallidus (4.2±1.8 ng/g) (p=0.085) and higher than in I. africana (2.7±1.0 ng/g), P. elongatus (2.4±2.1 ng/g) and P. morio (2.0±0.9 ng/g) (all p < 0.05), with no clear relationship to the average values of δ 15 N (Fig.

3

). Similarly, ∑DDTs was higher in C. gasar (3.3±2.2 ng/g) and lower in P. morio (0.3±0.0 ng/g) (χ 2 =11.8, df=4, p < 0.05). The same ranking as for CB-153 was observed for p-p'DDE. Regarding sites, Bambouchine had the most diverse profile (five POPs in more than two samples), no CB-118 was detected at Moka and no CB-180 was detected at Babylone. No difference in ∑PCBs and ∑DDTs

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2023.116009

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Gabonese Agence Nationale des Parcs Nationaux (ANPN), Gabon and the French Agence Française de Développement (AFD), France who funded this study under the "Arc d'Emeraude" project. We also thank the technicians of the LHI/IRAF/CENAREST laboratory who participated in the sampling campaigns and Rémi Freydier and Sophie Delpoux from the AETE-ISO platform for trace metals analysis. Finally, thanks to two anonymous reviewers for their comments and the editor for improving the quality of the final manuscript.

Data Availability

The data for this study are available on the repository DataSuds: https://doi.org/10.23708/8OUARI.


Lina Danawi
email: linadannawi@hotmail.com

Lionel Garreau
email: lionel.garreau@dauphine.psl.eu

A Dynamic Perspective on Middle Managers Issue Selling

Keywords: Théories de la stratégie comme pratique, Multinationale, Middle Management, Innovation, Etude de cas

Cet article s'intéresse à l'issue selling, une puissante forme d'influence stratégique qui reste pourtant peu connue. Notre recherche est basée sur une étude de cas enchâssé dans une banque du moyen orient où 5 mini-cas sont analysés sur une période de 10 ans. Les résultats font plusieurs contributions. En premier lieu, ils proposent une approche itérative épisodique de l'issue selling qui démontre que ce process n'est pas une brève pratique. Deuxièmement, en abordant le processus d'issue selling sous l'angle des resources acquises par l'issue seller, les résultats éclairent l'aspect dynamique du process. Finalement, ils proposents aux managers des tactiques pour améliorer leurs chances dans une action d'issue selling.

2 Strasbourg, 6-9 juin 2023

INTRODUCTION

Issue selling consists in employees or managers developing efforts to convince decision makers about the relevance of an issue that the employee considers important for the company [START_REF] Morisson | Employee Voice And Silence[END_REF]. Applied to strategy, strategic issue selling generally consists in managers developing tactics to convince board members to take a strategic decision or to implement a specific strategic process [START_REF] Dutton | Selling Issues To Top Management[END_REF]. Despite being introduced more than three decades ago, we still don't know much about issue selling. There are surprisingly only about forty articles in total analysing this critical activity that seems key to managers bottom-up role (Floyd & Woodridge, 1997). The following histogram charts the number of articles published throughout these three decades. Only articles in academic journals, where <issue-selling> is coined as a key word, are captured here based on an advanced search in EBSCO HOST. considering what move could be more beneficial in certain circumstances, the iterations of issue selling episodes has been overlooked [START_REF] Howard-Grenville | Developing Issue Selling Effectiveness Overtime: Issue Selling As Resourcing[END_REF]. Actually, issue selling is an iterative process that may repeat several times before reaching objective [START_REF] Dutton | Selling Issues To Top Management[END_REF][START_REF] Howard-Grenville | Developing Issue Selling Effectiveness Overtime: Issue Selling As Resourcing[END_REF]. This paper proposes to consider what are the evolutions of issues selling episodes through iterations.

3 Strasbourg, 6-9 juin 2023 This research is based on an embedded case study of 1 case of a bank in the middle east, in which 5 sub-cases have been analysed over a period of 10 years. We show that each issue selling process consists in various issue selling episodes. We show the moves that middle managers practice at each episode and finally consider what has changed from one episode to the next until approval. This research is still in progress but preliminary contributions can be considered. First, it proposes an iterative episode-based view of issue selling that stresses that issue selling is not a short process. Second, it articulates moves of middle managers with asset accumulation over time, shedding light on the dynamic perspective of the process. Third, it gives managers new tips to improve their issue selling chance.

THEORETICAL OVERVIEW

MIDDLE MANAGERS STRATEGIC ISSUE SELLING PRACTICES

ISSUE SELLING

Issue selling is a process by which individuals, mainly middle managers, within an organization bring ideas, concerns, solutions and opportunities together in ways that focus attention and invite action [START_REF] Dutton | Moves That Matter: Issue Selling And Organizational Change[END_REF]. Issue selling has been identified as a critical process in the early stages of decision making that shapes an organization's investment of time and attention [START_REF] Dutton | Reading The Wind: How Middle Managers Assess The Context For Selling Issues To Top Managers[END_REF]. The issue selling literature can be grouped in two categories: the first and most common research category has focused on the intention to sell, analysing the antecedents, contextual cues and even relation drivers that are favourable to it [START_REF] Dutton | Reading The Wind: How Middle Managers Assess The Context For Selling Issues To Top Managers[END_REF][START_REF] Dutton | Red Light Green Light: Making Sense Of The Organizational Context Of Issue Selling[END_REF][START_REF] Luo | When Both Differences And Dependencies Matter: Toward An Effective Interaction Perspective On Issue-Selling[END_REF][START_REF] Gorgijevski | Does Pro-Activity Matter: The Importance Of Initiative Selling Tactics For Headquarters Acceptance Of Subsidiary Initiatives[END_REF][START_REF] Alt | Selling Issues With Solutions: Igniting Social Intrapreneurship In For-Profit Organizations[END_REF][START_REF] Conroy | The Legitimacy Of Subsiduary Issue Selling: Balancing Positive And Negative Attention From Corporate Headquarters[END_REF]. The second category of research has analysed the mechanics of the selling process, the how i.e., the moves [START_REF] Ling | Towards A Model Of Issue Selling By Subsidiary Managers In Multinational Organizations[END_REF][START_REF] Howard-Grenville | Developing Issue Selling Effectiveness Overtime: Issue Selling As Resourcing[END_REF][START_REF] Sonenshein | Crafting Social Issues At Work[END_REF][START_REF] Bishop | Preparation And Prior Experience In Issue-Selling Success[END_REF][START_REF] Ashford | Out On A Limb: The Role Of Context And Impression Management In Selling Gender-Equity Issues[END_REF][START_REF] Gorgijevski | Does Pro-Activity Matter: The Importance Of Initiative Selling Tactics For Headquarters Acceptance Of Subsidiary Initiatives[END_REF][START_REF] Conroy | The Legitimacy Of Subsiduary Issue Selling: Balancing Positive And Negative Attention From Corporate Headquarters[END_REF]. Strasbourg, 6-9 juin 2023 Issue selling has been theorized as a process with two main dimensions: packaging moves followed by selling moves. Packaging moves include how issue sellers frame the issue (for example as a threat or opportunity) and how they present it (for example using logic of a business plan). Bundling the issue (for example tying it to value goals or others) is also considered a packaging move. Selling moves include preparation, involving others, formality and timing. This includes 'doing one's homework' at the initiation of issue selling by understanding decision makers and shaping the messaging. Involvement moves were later added as a category and include who to involve in issue selling efforts and the nature of involvement [START_REF] Dutton | Moves That Matter: Issue Selling And Organizational Change[END_REF].

A PRACTICE VIEW OF ISSUE SELLING

Issue selling has been considered through a strategy-as-practice approach. The strategy-aspractice or practice approach distinguishes between practices, practitioners and praxis, the 'what' the 'who' and the 'how' respectively [START_REF] Whittington | Completing The Practice Turn In Strategy Research[END_REF]. Practices are defined in the broad sense of 'accepted ways of doing things, embodied and materially mediated, that are shared between actors and routine over time' [START_REF] Reckwitz | Towards A Theory Of Social Practices: A Development In Culturalist Theorizing[END_REF][START_REF] Schatzki | Introduction: Practice Theory In The Practice Turn In Contemporary Theory[END_REF]. Praxis is defined as the 'interpretative enactment of practices by practitioners' [START_REF] Reckwitz | Towards A Theory Of Social Practices: A Development In Culturalist Theorizing[END_REF]. None of these practices is fixed in its trajectory overtime and by reflecting on experience, practitioners are able to adapt existing practices [START_REF] Whittington | Completing The Practice Turn In Strategy Research[END_REF].

We cited 3 studies that have adopted a practice perspective in issue selling. [START_REF] Dutton | Moves That Matter: Issue Selling And Organizational Change[END_REF] applied insights from practice theory and practice theory's emphasis on situated knowledge to better explain the practical accomplishment of directing attention to issues in organizations.

Their research revealed the importance of relational, normative, and strategic contextual knowledge in this process. They recognized, however, falling short in examining how the process unfolded overtime in context. Strasbourg, 6-9 juin 2023 Howard-Greenville (2007) adopted the practice perspective and conducted their analysis of issue selling practices between, across and within projects. Their research presented issue selling as a form of resourcing whereby issue sellers use four assets to draw upon: ability to mobilize personnel or money, relationships, expertise and normative knowledge. Their model, however, implied that there is 'no magic formula' for issue selling moves. [START_REF] Chen | Making Digital Innovation Happen: A Chief Information Officer Issue Selling Perspective[END_REF] followed the practice perspective to examine chief information officers' information issue selling practices. Their results showed that CIO's issue selling effectiveness, rather than structural position, directly influences the level of organizational digital innovation success. Their research represented a paradigm shift (i.e., from a structure perspective to a practice perspective) in IS leadership research, especially with regard to understanding how the CIO may increase his or her organizational influence.

ISSUE SELLING: A VARIANCE / PROCESS DICHOTOMY

A VARIANCE APPROACH BASED ON EFFECTIVENESS OF ISSUE SELLING

Scholars vary in terms of how they define issue selling effectiveness. [START_REF] Dutton | Selling Issues To Top Management[END_REF], 1997, 2001) focused on direct effectiveness as measured by two precursors: the amount of time and attention top management devotes to an issue and increases or decreases in issue seller's credibility. In cases where the issue seller is a multinational corporation (MNC) instead of an individual, credibility as a measure of effectiveness is replaced by bargaining power. For example, an effective subsidiary's issue-selling strategy would have a positive effect on its bargaining power and increases its intrafirm competition within the MNC [START_REF] Gammelgaard | Issue Selling And Bargaining Power In Intrafirm Competition: The Differentiating Impact Of The Subsidiary Management Composition[END_REF].

Research focusing on the indirect effectiveness of issue selling examined how issue selling initiates or constrains organizational strategy agenda [START_REF] Howard-Grenville | Developing Issue Selling Effectiveness Overtime: Issue Selling As Resourcing[END_REF]. Agenda issues in turn may facilitate organizational change and shape organizational adaptation (Bishop et al., Strasbourg, 6-9 juin 2023[START_REF] Bishop | Preparation And Prior Experience In Issue-Selling Success[END_REF]. The main point here is that time and attention of top management are neither a sufficient nor a necessary precursors of substantive action.

The emphasis on direct or indirect effectiveness of issue selling is in many ways affected by the type of logic adopted in understanding the significance of issue selling. According to Dutton, issue selling is significant to both individuals and organizations according to both an instrumental and a symbolic logic [START_REF] Dutton | Selling Issues To Top Management[END_REF]. Instrumental logic emphasizes how issues selling affects concrete and substantive actions whereas symbolic logic emphasizes the processes role in creating and sustaining meaning. Regardless of how the performance of issue selling is measured, the significance of issue selling and ultimately how issue selling effectiveness is measured has direct bearing on the application of issue selling knowledge. For example, if effectiveness is measured in terms of top management attention, organizations interested in creating a more adaptive culture can empower their employees by teaching them how to frame issues.

Studies that deep-dived on issue selling moves examined issue selling effectiveness. For example, the "use of a business logic" is more often described in successful selling episodes than unsuccessful ones [START_REF] Dutton | Moves That Matter: Issue Selling And Organizational Change[END_REF][START_REF] Sonenshein | Crafting Social Issues At Work[END_REF]. "Involving others" is also frequently cited as a tactic used in successful issue selling episodes [START_REF] Dutton | Moves That Matter: Issue Selling And Organizational Change[END_REF][START_REF] Ling | Towards A Model Of Issue Selling By Subsidiary Managers In Multinational Organizations[END_REF]. Existing research also suggested that "preparation moves" are issue selling tactics that matter most [START_REF] Bishop | Preparation And Prior Experience In Issue-Selling Success[END_REF][START_REF] Gorgijevski | Does Pro-Activity Matter: The Importance Of Initiative Selling Tactics For Headquarters Acceptance Of Subsidiary Initiatives[END_REF]. Other scholars that have examined issue selling effectiveness concluded differently, that there is no one best-way to sell an issue (Howard-Greenville, 2007) or that tactics can be used differently in different locations and context [START_REF] Ling | Towards A Model Of Issue Selling By Subsidiary Managers In Multinational Organizations[END_REF].

The reason for this ambiguity is that findings in issue selling research are often "generalized across content" [START_REF] Ashford | Out On A Limb: The Role Of Context And Impression Management In Selling Gender-Equity Issues[END_REF] or "unitized" [START_REF] Conroy | The Legitimacy Of Subsiduary Issue Selling: Balancing Positive And Negative Attention From Corporate Headquarters[END_REF]. For example, findings about choice-of-channels are grouped across informal or formal channels (Dutton et Strasbourg, 6-9 juin 2023al., 2001;[START_REF] Mayer | The Risk-Selling: Comment Le Risk Manager Influence-Til L'attention Portee Aux Risques Par Les Decideurs?[END_REF][START_REF] Ul Haq | Trapped In A Vicious Circle: Can Low-Weight Subsidiaries Get Headquarters' Attention[END_REF][START_REF] Gorgijevski | Does Pro-Activity Matter: The Importance Of Initiative Selling Tactics For Headquarters Acceptance Of Subsidiary Initiatives[END_REF] or private and public [START_REF] Conroy | The Legitimacy Of Subsiduary Issue Selling: Balancing Positive And Negative Attention From Corporate Headquarters[END_REF]. It is similarly the case for issue characteristics with findings grouped across issue content, for example social and non-social issues [START_REF] Alt | Selling Issues With Solutions: Igniting Social Intrapreneurship In For-Profit Organizations[END_REF][START_REF] Mayer | The Money Or The Morals? When Moral Language Is More Effective For Selling Social Issues[END_REF]. Nature of involvement is another area that is broadly grouped across formal/informal forms or breadth of involvement [START_REF] Dutton | Moves That Matter: Issue Selling And Organizational Change[END_REF][START_REF] Ling | Towards A Model Of Issue Selling By Subsidiary Managers In Multinational Organizations[END_REF][START_REF] Howard-Grenville | Developing Issue Selling Effectiveness Overtime: Issue Selling As Resourcing[END_REF], with not enough empirical work to identify how stakeholders should be involved. Another potential explanation for the ambiguity around issue selling effectiveness is that not many considered issue selling's dynamic nature. By obtaining measures of variables at a single point of time, they obviously missed some of the temporal dynamics (Morrison and Phelps, 1999). For example, one issue selling episode may be influenced by the success of past efforts or the independent variables affecting issue selling may have changed.

A PROCESS APPROACH TO UNPACK DYNAMICS AND ITERATION IN ISSUE SELLING

Issue selling is recognized to be a long and effortful process that requires persistence on the part of the issue seller to raise the issues repeatedly and make continuous proposals [START_REF] Dutton | Moves That Matter: Issue Selling And Organizational Change[END_REF][START_REF] Dutton | Red Light Green Light: Making Sense Of The Organizational Context Of Issue Selling[END_REF][START_REF] Ashford | Identity And The Modern Organization[END_REF][START_REF] Bishop | Preparation And Prior Experience In Issue-Selling Success[END_REF][START_REF] Henderson | Women Project Managers: The Exploration Of Their Job Challenges And Issue Selling Behaviors[END_REF][START_REF] Meidell | How The Enterprise Risk Management Function Influences Decision-Making In The Organization -A Field Study Of A Large, Global Oil And Gas Company[END_REF][START_REF] Mayer | The Money Or The Morals? When Moral Language Is More Effective For Selling Social Issues[END_REF]Jarett, 2020). Nonetheless, the methodological challenges that researchers may face, for example data collection method, has limited their ability to examine a process that may take several years from start to end [START_REF] Ong | Proactivity At Work: Making Things Happen In Organizations[END_REF]. Recognizing these limitations a number of scholars (for example Morrisson and Phelps, 1999;[START_REF] Dutton | Moves That Matter: Issue Selling And Organizational Change[END_REF][START_REF] Dutton | Red Light Green Light: Making Sense Of The Organizational Context Of Issue Selling[END_REF][START_REF] Piderit | Breaking Silence: Tactical Choices Women Managers Make In Speaking Up About Gender-Equity Issues[END_REF] called for more research on how issue selling, as a dynamic process, unfolds overtime.

Instead of considering the dynamic nature of issue selling, other scholars used moderators to explain differences in issue selling performance. For example, Gammelgaard (2009) who Strasbourg, 6-9 juin 2023 surveyed five Danish MNCs operating subsidiaries in the Asian region, demonstrated that subsidiary management composition had a moderating effect on issue selling effectiveness. In other words, parent-company national managers were better at selling issues than host-country national managers. [START_REF] Bishop | Preparation And Prior Experience In Issue-Selling Success[END_REF] examined manager tenure and demonstrated that prior experience in the organization and industry leads to use of higher levels of issue-selling patterns.

To date, only Howard-Grenville (2007) has explored the unfolding of issue selling though iterations of issue selling episodes. She describes how issue sellers develop resources in order to better convince decision makers about the relevance of considering the issue. Her perspective about cumulating assets shed new light on the issue selling process. Nevertheless, though adopting a resourcing perspective, her paper does not address how moves interact and change over time. In that view, we raise the question: What are the evolutions of issues selling episodes through iterations?

METHODOLOGY

In this research, we use an interpretive embedded cumulative case study of five issue selling of digital innovations in a leading bank in the middle east region.

2.1.RESEARCH SITE

The bank is one of the largest and best performing in its region. Throughout much its existence, it had enjoyed near-monopoly status in its core market. In the early 2000s, the bank became a pioneer when it adopted a regional expansion strategy to grow beyond its core market. Through a series of greenfield set ups and acquisitions, the bank expanded its network to include more than ten countries. The expansion was accompanied by an evolution in the bank's strategic Strasbourg, 6-9 juin 2023 planning and management practices and a shift from a top-down to bottom-up approach. In that period, the decision making process at the helm of this bank gradually shifted as well to become more inclusive and then turned collective when a new Top Management Committee (TMC) took over. The TMC includes all executives in the bank with a title CEO or Group Head with four leading figures (GCEO, DGCEO, CEO Home Market and DCEO Home Market) that had strong affiliations to the bank's board of directors and had been part of top management for decades.

Over the last decade, the bank's decision makers were confronting many of the same competitive pressures that challenge most banks, including a need to lower costs, focus on quality, and accommodate an increasingly demanding customer. Moreover, although the banking sector in the country where the bank operates remains heavily regulated and protected, competition from digital disruptors such as FinTech was increasing. These challenges translated into a heightened interest in, and pressure for, innovation. At the same time, the bank nurtured a conservative culture that often translated into resistance to innovative issues or projects where the bank had no track record or competency. It is precisely this tension, between a low organizational context favourability and high environmental threats from digital disruptors, that made this unique context interesting to analyse.

2.2.CASES SELECTION

The criteria for selecting issue selling cases was complex. Being on site, we could follow many discussions from the incremental development of the narrative (Vacquier et al., forthcoming) and retrospectively select relevant issue selling processes that have unfolded through multiple iterations. We eventually selected five cases, three digital projects that were successfully sold and delivered, one digital project that despite several selling episodes had not yet been approved to move into implementation, and a proposition for a new subsidiary. We included a brief Strasbourg, 6-9 juin 2023 description of each case in Table 1 below and their corresponding status at the time of the data collection period.

Table 1. Cases selection

Issues

Description Status

Digital Money

Setting up a multi-country money management platform for regional customers.

Pre-planning phase

Digital Platform

Setting up a new system to automate the back end and front end of all treasury products and services.

Delivered

Digital Customer Setting up an analytical platform to provide a single view of customers across business groups and geographies.

Delivered

Digital Attacker

Setting up a new digital bank in a market outside core market to grow presence.

Delivered

Subsidiary Entity Setting up a legal entity in a market outside the core market to offer wealth management products and services. Delivered

2.3.DATA COLLECTION METHOD

Data was collected over the period February 2019-March 2021. During the data collection period, we were full time on site at the head office premises of this leading bank and interreacted regularly with the middle managers, who were the project owners for each project, and other participants. Interviews served as the primary source of data in order to capture, as completely as possible, a retrospective account of the issue selling process as it unfolded over time and the elements that seemed most important in the interviewees' understanding of the story. We conducted 6 interviews per mini case and made sure we had the project owners, i.e., the issue sellers, and a sample of issue receivers and observers. This approach enabled us to take a more holistic view of the selling process, to understand the interdependencies and influence of each of these actors and to triangulate evidence. Strasbourg, 6-9 juin 2023

The second category of data consisted of informal discussions and non-recorded meetings that we documented using hand written notes. The informal discussions were held with middle managers close to each project. Although they did not accept to be recorded or to go into project specifics, the discussions gave valuable insights about the context and lessons learned about what works and does not work when selling digital projects. The non-recorded meetings were formal project management meetings that we attended as researchers to enlarge our understanding of the projects and the research question.

The third category of data consisted of internal documents pertaining to each project, for example presentations and minutes of meeting that project owners compiled overtime and over the course of multiple selling episodes. Their use was to support and triangulate evidence coming from the interviews. We were not privileged to keep those documents and they were handed in hardcopy by the project owners. We reviewed the documents, took notes as needed to confirm results and handed them over to the project owners. Table 2 presents an overview of data collection methods.

2.4.DATA ANALYSIS

The initial task was to organize the data by mini-cases as collected from the various data sources. The subsequent action was to use what the middle managers said was done, how they 12 Strasbourg, 6-9 juin 2023 convinced, why there were not satisfied etc. to develop a narrative for each mini-case [START_REF] Langley | Strategies From Theorizing From Process Data[END_REF]. We used the accounts of the other participants (observers, receivers) to triangulate the data and complete the narrative. We used other data sources as well to validate the information, going back and forth to the documents handed to me by each project owners and to the project related notes taken during informal discussions and non-recorded meetings. The events we were investigating were well documented. We ended up this step through creating issue selling episodes for each case.

The second step of our analysis consisted in coding the data in a theoretical way. We used Dutton and Ashford's issue selling framework ( 2001) to direct the method of data analysis (refer to table 3 for coding grid). The framework grouped nineteen issue selling moves into three general categories (packaging, involvement, selling process) and seven subcategories (presentation, bundling, framing, targets of involvement, nature of involvement, preparation, and timing). We created in NVivo nodes for each of the category (parent nodes) and subcategories (child nodes). We also used Howard-Grenville (2007) idea of assets cumulation to consider what assets was at disposal at each issue selling episode throughout the whole temporality.

Table 3: and what the patterns of moves were in each episode. This exercise allowed us to produce a visual aid to configure data between and across projects.

FINDINGS

Our findings are organized as follows. First, we identify practices that are developed by issue sellers. Second, we propose an episode based of each mini case that enables to consider how issue selling moves unfold over time. We then propose a preliminary cross case analysis that requires further refinement.

ISSUE SELLING MOVES

Project owners, as issue sellers, used 3 groups of issue selling moves: packaging moves, involvement moves and process moves. All the moves resembled those identified in previous issue selling work, reinforcing the finding that middle managers use similar practices to influence decision making [START_REF] Bishop | Preparation And Prior Experience In Issue-Selling Success[END_REF][START_REF] Howard-Grenville | Developing Issue Selling Effectiveness Overtime: Issue Selling As Resourcing[END_REF]. The next sections include a brief description of each.

14 Strasbourg, 6-9 juin 2023

PACKAGING MOVES

Use logic of a business plan. Using the logic of a business plan to present a project is a critical part of the formal process of approving projects in this leading bank. It is therefore a well institutionalized selling practice that was mentioned by all the interviewees. Typically, the business case was constructed internally using numbers and charts as well as qualitative information. There was no uniform template. An external consultant might be brought in for support and validation. In digital cases, however, there were challenges with formulating the business case. One executive explained:

Digital projects were very difficult to really quantify like Digital Customer. How do you quantify the benefit of Complete Customer View on selling, on cross selling, on really improving the quality of this service, and on so many things, how do you quantify it? It's not easy. As for Digital Attacker, the proposition was that I will have X clients, this amount etc. You get it right, you don't, who knows, it's still very uncertain.

Package issue as incremental. Interviewees used different terms to describe this packaging move: « peace-meal», « de-risk », « step by step ». Nonetheless, interviewees, who mentioned this move, presented it as a last resort rather than something project owners would adopt from the get go.

Tie issue to valued goals or key concerns. Interviewees mentioned that projects were tied to valued goals such as profitability and market share. Only in one case, Digital Platform, the project owner tied the project to mitigating risks, a concern for key constituents. The prevalence of this bundling move, relatively to the others, was mainly because, as one project owner explained, framing a project as an opportunity was perceived as more effective for selling:

It is easier for a revenue generating project then a cost saving project to get approval, or a risk reduction project unless otherwise it is a regulatory project. Strasbourg, 6-9 juin 2023

INVOLVEMENT MOVES

Wide range of involvement. In terms of the nature of the involvement, interviewees spoke about a wide range of involvement. Some even mentioned that the nature of the involvement was a function of the importance of the stakeholders. For example, one project owner said:

For the most important stakeholders, we involved them in the business case and we made them in the core team in order to get their buy in. We did not make it as they are stakeholders, we made them as partners. And the other stakeholders, based on their relatively to the project, we involved them accordingly.

Generally, interviewees spoke more about the objective behind involving others more than the nature of the involvement. They said the objective is to « reach alignment » or to « get their buy in ». This was important because lack of alignment amongst stakeholders was frequently mentioned in rejected projects. For example, one middle manager who participated in Digital Money:

They went for (a project owner) junior level that couldn't achieve alignments with very senior stakeholders. It was positioned as a global product. That just meant more stakeholders with different incentives and these incentives and the purpose behind these incentives were never addressed.

Outside the organization. Interviewees spoke of involving external consultants to build a business case or identify business requirements when internal resources lacked the expertise.

On the non-digital project, an external consultant was brought in to do the business case, however it was mainly to validate what executive management already knew and for the financial projections and to provide a benchmark. Strasbourg, 6-9 juin 2023

PROCESS MOVES

Doing one's homework.

The practice meant going the extra mile to collect information in preparation for selling the project, over and beyond the deliverables dictated by the bank's protocol (that latter included a business requirement document, vendor research phase followed by request for proposals from 3 vendors). For example, the project owner in Digital Customer conducted a case study:

It was much easier to sell, to go to top management and say, we did this case study, and this case study took one month and we still couldn't get what we wanted. If you implement the system you'll get it on a daily basis.

Early involvement of stakeholders. Some interviewees mentioned involving stakeholders early in the process of selling. One of the executives explained:

The earlier you involve people, from day one in the thinking, the earlier I mean when you start, if you make people feel that they own it from day one, it's much better, it's much better than making people join mid-way or some way after. You know when you are on a white paper from the scratch, on the drawing board, if you bring people with you on the brain storming, on really seeing the problem, defining the problem, at a very early stage, definitely they will help. Because they feel they own it, there won't be resistance.

Persistence in selling activities. Persistence was mentioned in all the digital cases and was not mentioned in the non-digital case. Interviewees used different terms to describe persistence: "a lot of effort", "fight for it", "constant kind of selling", "push and push", "dedication", "eagerness", "your neck is on the line", 'takes a lot of energy'. One middle manager involved on two cases explained: Strasbourg, 6-9 juin 2023

The more the business is actively pushing and engaged, the most likely that this project will come to life sooner. If you don't fight for it, there are other businesses, other locations in the bank that could take your spot. Yes, you have to be always there, always aware of what's going on as far as projects within the bank so that you don't lose your slot Opportune timing. Interviewees mentioned that the timing of the sell can be based on the level of support that existed for that issue, the pressure for action on it and the availability of information. For example, one middle manager explained:

If I tell myself how to approach our management, let's say 10 to 15 years back, where digitalization was not a core focus of the bank back then, maybe it would have been a much tougher sell for us, being it doesn't fit within the bank's overall objectives.

However as you know, for the last few years the bank has been strongly focused on digitalization and how we can improve the customer experience for our clients.

3.2.CHRONOLOGY AND PRACTICES OF EACH SUB-CASE

CASE DIGITAL MONEY

First episode 2011-2014. The story of Digital Money started in 2011 in one of the strategy planning cycles when money management and transaction banking were buzz words in the banking industry. As a result, the bank decided to develop and offer clients money management to stay in line with international and regional offerings and to boost revenues. There was, however, a lack of traction. The project sponsor did not appoint a project owner and used IT to lead on vendor selection, scope and requirements for the system. As a result, it was some time until the project reached top management for approval and, when it finally did in 2014, it was rejected. One executive explained: Strasbourg, 6-9 juin 2023 IT started playing the role of business to set the business requirements in the name of helping them but in the end they're not facing the customers. The owner has to be the business because they're the ones who have to commercialize it and take it to the customer.

Second episode 2015-2017. In 2015, the bank recruited a fully dedicated resource for money management and appointed him as project owner. The new recruit was a product manager, firstlevel manager not middle management. The task given to the new product manager was to select a specific vendor and relaunch the identification of requirements phase. No detailed justifications were needed nor business case at that stage as top management was fully supportive of the project and there was in fact pressure to press forward and to get back on track. In 2017, however, top management put the project on hold again, citing issues with the vendor.

Third episode 2017-2018. The team repeated the process again, calling in a number of new vendors. They then selected one vendor and repeated one more time the requirements phase.

The project however was put on hold for the third time and executive management asked the project sponsor to bring on board the right expertise level to steer the project. One middle manager working on the project explained:

This project wasn't a success from the beginning because it was a very new product and it was difficult to assess the resources that were needed to proceed.

Fourth episode 2019-2020. In 2019, a middle manager was onboarded as Head of Money Management. This new project owner prepared a business case presentation and repeated the vendor selection process but soon discovered the challenges: I engaged IT but they had an IT committee prioritization challenge in terms of projects and the International Group was confused whether they need the project or not. Strasbourg, 6-9 juin 2023

The project owner presented the new business case in February, 2020 to all the CEOs. He covered a regional money management platform, across all the bank groups. In Mid-April, executive management put the project on hold due to the corona pandemic.

Fifth episode 2021. In January 2021, after the project owner and project sponsor approached executive management to put the project back on track, they were asked during the meeting for a business case again. By this time, the project owner was put under pressure to reduce the scope of the project:

We came back with the vendor evaluation but the International Group did not foresee much of growth in their corporate business, whilst the other groups are clear to go ahead.

One executive offered a different reason for reducing scope:

They didn't completely comprehend the complexity of the technology stack that comes with having something like that. Our biggest enabler, IT, was fully and totally maxed out in terms of resources.

Sixth episode 2021-2022. Group Strategy was called in to help in rescoping the project and preparing the business case. The new approach the team had now adopted was to build the business case focusing on home market first with a roadmap of where to be in 3 to 5 years. The platform was therefore to be built with an optionality of having additional products and flexibility on the channel to allow regional integration. One middle manager felt more confident about this submission:

We're in the final process of approving it and I think it will get approved because a lot has been unofficially approved. We're just formalizing it to some extent you can consider that we're formalizing it, because all the variables have been frozen so hopefully it will be done probably in the next 1 or 2 months. Strasbourg, 6-9 juin 2023 There were a total 6 selling episodes on Digital Money. As illustrated in Figure 2, the patterns of issue selling moves were very different in the later episodes compared to the earlier ones. In the first episode, because the project was initiated by the GCEO, it required no selling.

However, it was also initiated with limited assets (formal authority, structural power and expertise), which resulted in a lack of traction. Long delays led the project to be submitted after the new TMC took over in Y4, and that latter rejected the project.

Next, the project sponsor appointed a project owner, however this also failed to achieve momentum because that this first-line manager lacked the structural power and expertise to successfully sell the project, despite two consecutive attempts.

By the fourth selling episode, the project was given a subject matter expert and middle manager as new project owner, but it was put on hold due to the pandemic. At the next selling episode, because not all the stakeholders were on board, it was again rejected. None of the selling so far had included "involvement moves", a misstep the project owner corrected on the next and final episode. This shift was combined with a shift in packaging moves: the project owner used "package the project as incremental", a concession made to get buy-in. Strasbourg, 6-9 juin 2023

Case Digital Platform

First episode 2012-2013. The story of Digital Platforms started in 2012 when, during the diagnostic phase preceding the strategy planning cycle that year, it was recognized that the bank's treasury system was no longer 'fit for purpose' given the bank's size. One executive explained the challenges that led the project to be rejected:

This was a large investment for a unit that does not necessarily contribute a lot. The business case is more around eliminating risk and making sure that we can actually handle business needs, and potential launching new products in the future. But we faced a challenge because risk typically points to problems after the fact.

Second episode 2016-2017. In 2016, Investments, another unit in the bank, submitted a business proposal for a digital solution. Top management committee rejected the case because the scope and the cost of the project were larger than initially discussed. We invited the vendors, they did their presentations, we picked a vendor and it was 2, 3 hundred thousand dollars. But then when we told the finance team what we were doing, they wanted to be also connected, then operations also wanted to connect everything together, then suddenly the price became 3 or 4 million dollars.

Third episode 2017-2018. The project team decided to combine Investments and Treasury and resubmit the project for approval. A middle manager explained the rationale:

At that time, a member in the project steering committee said why don't you then involve treasury because treasury has been looking into possible ways to replace and upgrade their existing system. We are paying this much on an infrastructure project that is common whether we do a treasury or an investment or treasury investment.

The scope had become bigger and more complex and the project owner understood that he had to emphasise the value at risk in order to justify the larger spend. The project owner explained:

I called internal audit and told them I need you please on top of our annual audits to go

and look into this specific system. I ended up with a bunch of audit recommendations or audit points, and that was my starting point.

Another important anchor that the project owner used in his justification for the project was that the current treasury system had reached end-of-life and will need major upgrade. The project owner presented in 2018 the new project, however, after vendor selection and requirements phase, top management committee rejected the project because of issues with single sourcing one vendor.

Fourth episode 2018-2019. The project owner explained how previous rejections impacted the approach taken next: to use an external vendor to prepare the business requirements for the project, a phase usually handled with internal resources: Strasbourg, 6-9 juin 2023

We learned a lot from the first process because we know what we want but we don't know what's available in the market, stuff that we might use but we are not aware of.

After that phase, the project owner was more confident with approaching the top management committee with a business case and project scope. In 2019, the top management committee adopted Digital Platform.

There were in total 4 selling episodes on this digital project. As illustrated in Figure 3, the project demonstrated similar shifts in patterns and moves as in Digital Money but the selling was ultimately successful on this case. We noted a few distinctions between the two projects.

First, Digital Platform also started with limited assets but gained each type at a faster pace. At the start of the third selling episode, the projects had already accumulated formal authority (dedicated project owner), expertise (knowledgeable project owner) and structural power (influential project sponsor and project owner as middle manager). This accumulation of assets in Digital Money was more staggered and their sponsor was not as influential.

Second, the project owners knew the context, which led them to launch 'involvement moves' earlier in the process, demonstrating again that achieving buy-in is a necessary (not sufficient)

precursor of issue selling effectiveness in the context of this leading bank.

Third, the project owner used previous experiences of resistance and failure to shift moves, for example, the shift in 'packaging moves' in episode 3, when the project owner packaged

Investments and Treasury as one. The involvement of a consultant, 'outside the organization', to prepare the business requirements was another example. Strasbourg, 6-9 juin 2023 Retail. The justification was clear: to establish a meaningful retail presence to stabilize the bank's corporate presence in a sizeable country X. With the project sponsor, they decided to appoint an external consultant since they lacked the experience to build a business case for a pure digital play. Despite the external consultant expertise and the backing of the influential project sponsor (the Deputy Group CEO), top management did not approve the project for a number of reasons. An executive explained: There was resistance from IT in terms of capabilities and resources, that this is too big.

Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Y6 Y7 Y8 Y9 Y10 Y11
And also, doubting capabilities, that we are able to hire people, that we are able to do it, that it's just too big.

Moreover, there was some reluctance by some members of the top management committee to be one of the first banks to launch a digital bank in the region. The project owner and his team, they spent tons of time trying to understand what are the capabilities, how we can help them, what time frame do they need, trying to make them not sell our idea but be at least on board. Finance, we needed to conform, although we had a business case, and we had everything, we needed to involve them much more in the details.

In 2019, the project was resubmitted for approval to top management. An executive explained the changes in the environment:

Competition has increased in home market with small attacker banks coming up and the CEO of our local Islamic subsidiary was making very good steps in technology and in digital.

Within this context, top management questioned the choice of the market and rejected the project. Strasbourg, 6-9 juin 2023

Third episode 2020. The team had to reconvene and build new arguments. An executive talked about these new arguments:

We didn't want to basically start it in the home market. In the home market to start digital and fail, many banks in the past failed in digital, it will impact your name, your reputation, your bank in your best market which is the home market.

This approach worked and after some time, the project owner resubmitted the project a final time to top management. With that final submission, the management committee finally adopted Digital Attacker.

There were in total 3 selling episodes on Digital Attacker. As illustrated in Figure 4, selling at this digital project involved a number of moves from the onset. However, because it was missing what we learned are critical elements for issue selling effectiveness in this leading bank, both expertise and involvement moves, it was unsuccessful. The project owner addressed these gaps in the next selling episode, but the delays were accompanied with a change in context. It was no longer opportune timing to deploy the project in Country X and the bank's decision makers were questioning the justification behind the choice of market.

To address this resistance, the project owner shifted packaging moves, tying the issue with the key concerns of constituents (which was reputation risk if we fail in home market). This shift led to success and the project was adopted. Strasbourg, 6-9 juin 2023 system, a migration that had faced many challenges and budget overruns. The data problem was 'hidden' because data users in functional and business areas of the bank were not voicing their data problems to top management and instead were dealing with their data issues in silos, often assigning more resources to conduct manual workarounds and reconciliations. Within this context and with the strong resistance from the bank's Finance function to commit additional capital expenditures to technology, the project was rejected. Second episode 2014-2016. Overtime, with mounting regulatory pressure and increasingly more demanding reporting requirements, the data problem was becoming more and more evident across the bank. Backed with more people talking about data problems, from Risk, Finance and Treasury, there was another push in 2015 for a solution, a comprehensive data warehouse project. However, it was rejected again on the basis that it did not meet criticality and benefits criteria compared to other projects that year. One executive explained:

We tried to move a proper data infrastructure project forward while we were talking in the context of Basel 3 implementation and at that point in time we turned around and pushed for a comprehensive data warehouse project, which would include requirements for risk, finance and treasury. The project however was stopped.

Third episode 2018-2019. In 2017, the bank's top management decided to create a specialized data function to be in line with a trend in the regional market and to address mounting pressure from the regulator on data quality and security. A Chief Data Officer joined in 2018 and his first task was to identify the main pain points for data in the bank. The subject of data infrastructure was thus quickly reopened. An executive explained:

With the new Chief Data Officer, we reopened the discussion on a data warehouse. Let's make this a revenue business case: let's build a data warehouse and with this let's generate a Complete Customer View of customers starting with corporate so that we can show results faster. He then resolved to demonstrate that there was a gap between the needs of the business and the current system. To demonstrate the gap, he conducted two case studies:

Digital

So we picked up two case studies, let's say these are my two corporate customer groups, let me try to build a Complete Customer View for these two. Knowing full well that it'll be very difficult to put that together because the process is all manual. After spending a month, we still couldn't put it together.

The timeline for Digital Customer from initiation to approval was a relatively fast one compared to other digital projects in the bank. In fact, it took a record three months for the project owner to present the project to the top management committee and get the preliminary approval. There were in total 3 selling episodes on this digital project. As illustrated in Figure 5, we see patterns of moves and assets, similar to the previous two digital projects. What led to successful issue selling performance in the third episode? First, onboarding a subject matter expert and middle manager as project owner in Y8 injected in the project formal authority, expertise and structural power. At the same time, the new project owner understood the context to immediately launch 'involvement moves' and completement them with 'early involvement' of stakeholders. Finally, the shift in packaging move, when the project owner packed the data project as revenue generating, showed that there was learning from previous experiences of failure and resistance. Strasbourg, 6-9 juin 2023 The rationale for the project was simple: expand the bank's offerings and footprint in country X under its strategic diversification umbrella. The project built a lot of traction quickly. A middle manager explained the reasons:

This project, which is expanding into another country, was probably a bit more casual than the normal project governance framework typically followed in this bank. At least in terms of getting approved, probably, I would say in my mind it was a no brainer to some people so they didn't want to go into too many bureaucratic steps.

Within year after project initiation, the top management committee approved the project. One executive provided the following explanation:

The difference between this one and Digital Attacker is they're going to the same market, they're using a consultant to build a business case but in one case it was more peripheral business, you are going to replicate what you are doing and the people that you have, management trust that they can do it. On the digital side, you don't have the resources and the track record, so it was a more difficult decision, that's why it took a lot more time.

Only one selling episode was required on this project and it was approved within one year.

Compared to the other digital projects, this project did not imply innovation in terms of technology or operating model and as a result, just a couple of issue selling moves were needed to get it approved. Moreover, the project was initiated with strong assets (influential sponsor and a dedicated project owner). Strasbourg, 6-9 juin 2023

A RENEWED PERSPECTIVE OF ISSUE SELLING PROCESS

We recognized, across all four digital cases, a number of important themes for issue selling effectiveness. Primarily, when projects are initiated with limited assets, the faster project owners accumulated each type of assets (formal authority, expertise, structural power), the faster they can achieve issue selling success. Accumulating assets, in turn, unlocked abilities to launch different patterns of moves. Second, 'involvement moves', are necessary but not sufficient precursor for issue selling effectiveness in this leading bank. This was expected given the bank's conservative culture and collective decision-making. Issue sellers that knew the context, successfully launched these moves. Third, successful issue sellers learned from resistance and failure in previous episodes and implemented shifts in moves accordingly. For example, the project owner on Digital Customer packaged the data infrastructure project as revenue generating and the project owner on Digital Platform combined both Investments and Treasury into one. Finally, as we analysed the shifts in moves overtime, it became evident that contextual knowledge is an asset as well for issue sellers to draw upon. For example, project owners who launched involvements moves knew or learned overtime that they needed to navigate the political aspects of the context. In the same token, the project owner in Digital Attacker who tied the choice of market to reputational risk, knew that this was a concern for key constituents.

This analysis expanded our lens, accounting for the observation that issue selling moves cannot be fully understood if we don't consider as well the context and how the process unfolded over time. Moreover, applying a more dynamic view led us to consider that issue selling activities shape and are also shaped by the issue selling process. As a result, we proposed in Figure 7 a renewed figure of issue selling. The figure suggests that, in order to successfully sell an issue, issue sellers must accumulate assets (formal authority, expertise, structural power, contextual knowledge) to unlock their ability to launch issue selling moves and fine-tune the way they combined and implemented them. An important implication is that multiple issue selling episodes are thus unavoidable on harder-to-sell issues, such as digital projects that are initiated for and by the business side often with limited resources. Astute issue sellers would therefore benefit from accelerating their acquisition of relevant assets and experiencing early on with moves.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

Our study is in progress, we propose here preliminary ways to contribute to the existing literature on issue selling.

4.1.THEORETICAL CONTRIBUTIONS

This study makes a number of theoretical contributions to the issue selling, middle management and IS literatures. The first theoretical contribution was to reflect on the dynamic nature of issue selling and provide empirical evidence to the practice perspective of issue selling that presents issue selling as a form of resourcing. This served to address a gap in the existing literature to analyze how issue selling unfolds overtime through the interplay of context and action. Within the context of this leading bank and its conservative culture and collective decision-making process, all the four digital projects covered in this research had witnessed multiple submissions because they all involved a "new way of doing things". As a result, the timeline for these projects to move from initiation to approval stretched overtime. One of the digital projects, Money Management was initiated in 2011 and at the time this research was conducted was still not approved. In contrast, the non-digital project wealth entity took one year only from initiation to approval. As a result, digital projects in this leading bank constituted good subjects to study how issue-selling evolves over time and to test and then confirm Howard-Greenville (2007) finding that issue sellers improve their craft overtime through a process of building resources and learning.

A second theoretical contribution for this research is that it led us to consider why some middle managers influence strategy more than others. Despite the growing body of empirical and theoretical work on the topic, understanding why some middle managers are involved in, and influence, the strategic process more than others is an important, and somewhat neglected, Strasbourg, 6-9 juin 2023 research issue [START_REF] Wooldridge | The Middle Management Perspective On Strategy Process[END_REF]. Our findings show that middle managers who are more effective in issue selling were more successful in getting top management to adopt their digital projects. This research thus suggests that, by improving their issue selling craft overtime, middle managers can more successfully influence, 'how projects become projects in the first place' [START_REF] Kingdon | How Do Issues Act On The Public Policy Agenda[END_REF], and thus shape the strategic agenda of their organization.

As a third theoretical contribution, this research proposes a middle way approach to digital innovation success, focusing on the role of middle managers and their strategic impacts in the digital era. Organizations that want to succeed in digital innovation adopt different models. On one side of the spectrum, they opt to create a centralized function, for example a chief digital function, with the responsibility to shape their digital agenda and to deliver business value from using digital technologies. On the other side of the spectrum, organizations choose to decentralize digital innovation, involving all the voices in the company for example by using an innovation management solution. The role and impact of the middle manager however remains largely overlooked.

4.2.PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

This study proposes that issue selling effectiveness would benefit middle managers who want to sell digital projects up the chain of command. These projects are typically highly innovative, costly and thus are harder-to-sell with long informal gestational periods, the time from initiation to adoption. How does issue selling effectiveness benefit them?

There is a practical benefit in issue selling effectiveness if organizations are willing to take a number of steps to prepare and support issue sellers. First, organizations can enhance issue sellers opportunities to acquire contextual knowledge. For example, one strategy could be to educate sellers about their own organization. Another strategy could be to include decision-Strasbourg, 6-9 juin 2023 making process in orientation programs for new recruits. By doing so, organizations can unlock middle management participation and create a bigger market of issues where sellers have similar depth and breadth of contextual knowledge to execute a variety of issue selling moves. Moreover, by educating themselves about issue selling, top executives would acknowledge that giving some resources to digital projects that are not yet sanctioned can in fact cut down long informal gestational periods, the time from initiation to adoption, and thus reduce time-tomarket. This research has shown that the assets needed for sellers to gain traction on a digital project are nothing but a small percentage of organizational time and money (for example appointing a fully dedicated issue owner with the right level of formal authority and expertise).

4.3.CONCLUSION

We acknowledge the several limitations of this study. The limitations stem from the applied research design and methodology. First, our analysis was limited by the number of digital cases we covered. The criteria used to select the units of analysis (digital, large, complex projects) restricted our selection. In other words, there were not too many projects that fit that criteria within one single organizational setting. Second, our data consisted of retrospective accounts.

One problem with such accounts is the accuracy of the recall of events and processes. We tried to minimize this limitation by triangulating evidence from different interviewees and data sources. No matter the use of different data sources and the triangulation effort, the narrative portion of the findings (first order findings) still included what we interpreted from the data collected as being meaningful for the generation of insights. However, even if the researchers' interpretation is never absolute, an ethnographic explanation can be accepted as meaningful if it accounts for the data in a plausible manner against our own set of explicit and implicit assumptions about social processes [START_REF] Douglas | Implicit Meanings: Selected Essays In Anthropology[END_REF]. Strasbourg, 6-9 juin 2023

The results of this study suggest several directions for future research. First, this study represents the first empirical study to examine middle managers issue selling in a leading organization in the banking sector, but our understanding of the triggers and willingness to engage in issue selling remains limited. Future studies should take a more fine grained analysis to understanding what triggers issue action or upward influence in a similar context, and more specifically what motivates middle managers in a way that makes them persistent, willing to come back over and over again with the same issue. Second, this study proposes differences between selling digital and non-digital projects and as well as a number of issue selling practices that are considered more effective in the specific context of this leading bank. We invite future research to test those propositions in other contexts, for example what happens with the same configuration in other non-digital projects and whether all failures in digital were due to the same elements. Finally, this study presents a renewed figure of issue selling based on a practice approach and a dynamic view and proposes that issue selling activities shape and are also shaped by the issue selling process. Future research may build on this insight to investigate more systematically this finding and test it in a larger sample of cases and middle managers.

Figure 1 .

 1 Figure 1. Issue selling articles (source: EBSCO HOST)

  step, we focused our analysis on identifying a logic for how issue selling practices changed overtime by revisiting the data and to create for each mini-case a time line of key events and decisions, and a context chart showing who was involved in each selling episode

Figure 2 :

 2 Figure 2 : Digital Money shifts in moves and assets overtime

Figure 3 :

 3 Figure 3 : Digital Platform shift in moves and assets overtime

Figure 4 :

 4 Figure 4 : Digital Attacker shifts in moves and assets overtime

  Customer was now born, turning what is essentially a data project into a revenue business case and focusing on an area of the bank (corporate bank) that had a relatively large contribution but where performance had been declining in recent years. To get the go ahead for initiating the project, the Chief Data Officer had to first explain to his project sponsor the concept of complete customer view: 29 Strasbourg, 6-9 juin 2023 It was about 3 months from the inception, the conception stage where I actually drew it on a piece of paper what Complete Customer View means, spoke to the sponsor, top management committee, and once I got that yeah this looks good, it will help us.

Figure 5 :

 5 Figure 5 : Digital Customer shifts in moves and assets overtime

Figure 6 :

 6 Figure 6 : Subsidiary Entity moves and assets overtime

Figure

  Figure 7 : A renewed figure of issue selling

Table 2 . Data collected Project title Interviews Non- recorded meetings Informal discussions Documents Volume of data in pages

 2

	Digital Attacker	6	2	9	3	103
	Digital Money	6	4	9	5	126
	Digital Customer	6	5	9	6	128
	Digital Platform	6	2	9	5	119
	Subsidiary Entity	4	0	9	1	65

  The project owner elaborated: Maybe it's a lack of trust, whatever you say and give a lot of examples, they would say no we still need to bring someone from outside, someone who has done it before and we said if you bring someone from outside to fit within the culture of the bank and the processes of the bank, it will take time.

Second episode 2019. Sourcing and recruiting someone who had expertise in digital delayed the project. A middle manager recalled what happened after the TMC rejected the project:

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