An inquiry on firm's collective on action devices

Doctoral thesis in management sciences defended on November 30, 2020 at 2:30 p.m. in vision conference

Abstract:

The collective dimension has become a central strategic reality for firms, nowadays including sustainable development and transition. These actions are mainly based on firms' collective action devices. They rely organizations, located at the interface between firm and the State, wich carry out non markets strategies, and support the CSR strategies and political activities of their member firms. Empirically, they can take multiple forms, traditional or more modern, wich complicates our understanding of the phenomenon.  Theoretical concepts, such as meta-organization, defined as organization whose members are organizations, make possible to apprenhend these organization alforms of firms'collective action. Although these concepts can help to understand some properties of the object of study of this thesis, they are nevertheless not sufficient reflect its great diversity, to explain its dynamics or not to grasp its internal functioning. This is the objective of this doctoral research, wich deals with firms'collective action devices, especially trade associations. The cases presented in this thesis relate to two sectors, renewable energies and organic food. Taking place within a comprehenseve and interdisciplinary (history, economics, politicals science, organization studies) approach, the case studies aim to give a synoptic view of the phenomenon, and to elaborate the elements of a theory of firms' collective action devices. It shows that the devices are based on an original governance, mixing the principles of hierarchiy an heterarcgy, it analyses theur dynamics (emergence, growth, dormancy, splits) from cost model; it studies their mode of action, articulating knowledege and power and participating in the construction of sector and its action, in relation to pulic authoritie.

Mots clés : collective strategy, nonmarket strategy, Meta-organization, Trade association, firm's collective action device, Transition

Composition du jury :