Punkalouver :
Sounds like you are saying that there is a cowboy element at the company that is looked upon favourably, with rules coming in second.
True?
Interesting that you use the term : "cowboy" I would not use it the way I understand it ( no rules at all ) " but rather, if you bend the rules and get something extraordinary then it is worth it . Like buzzing the TWR in the Top Gun film if you know what I mean. There was that element in the past , yes ,but I am not sure it is still there today in AF probably no, only an insider can tell. But the glorifying of that past era is still firmly anchored in the French culture.
Cowboy makes me think of the title of the biography book of Ziegler " the Airbus cowboys " just out.
Cowboys d'Airbus, Bernard Ziegler tous les livres à la Fnac
Reading it ( in French again , sorry ) makes you understand that bending the rules was an institution in those ( not too far away) days.