France undergoing two globalization processes from the 19th to the 21st century

The CONDOR Seminar — Hervé Dumez

In France, debate about the nature and stakes in globalization has thrived over the past few years. But France underwent a first globalization process in the late 19th century, prior to WW I. What are the similarities and difference between these two processes? On 7 February 2002, GDR-FROG organized a session of the Condor Seminar devoted to this question. Suzanne Berger, professor of political science at MIT, and Daniel Cohen, professor of economy at ENS-Ulm, presented contrasting views.

Can relational skills become strategic? The case of MAIF

Éric Persais

Since a firm now performs several functions in an interface with the outside, it must have solid relational skills for putting to a constructive use its many ties with other parties. The case of a mutual insurance fund serves to give contents to this idea and to show how such skills come into play in this firm’s long-term development. Points are provided for thinking about how such skills form, points that will help companies manage these key resources. In the current context of open doors and lower organizational boundaries, the expertise acquired in the relational field constitutes a major competitive advantage.

Cultivating a technological advantage within networks: The Compagnie Générale des Eaux

Christophe Assens, Alessandro Baroncelli and Thomas Froehlicher

Does the networking of firms boost creativity and the diffusion of innovations by fostering unforseen meetings? Or is it impossible to capitalize on the knowledge and know-how scattered throughout a network? Answers to these questions have been drawn from empirical observations of operations at Compagnie Générale des Eaux prior to 1996. A historical survey was made to determine this organization’s overall characteristics; and a case study, conducted to define local characteristics at the level of CGE’s subsidiaries, the latter taken to be nodal points in the network.

The asymmetry of information and the organization of banking: The case of an investment bank

Utz Hoeser and Vincent Simoulin

Doing business or simply making a decision is always risky. It forces people to justify their choices and to protect themselves as much as possible. Inherent in any decision-making process, this anxiety-causing dimension forces decision-makers to implement diverse protective measures, some of them internalized. To analyze a system that has, as its primary assignment, the management of high risks, more attention must be paid to these measures than to the rationales underlying the choices actually made. Since banking activities revolve around risk-taking, the example of a European investment bank is used to develop this original approach to decision-making about how to fund big projects.

Claude Riveline: Joyful competition

Jean-Philippe Neuville : On philanthropy in America

Hervé Dumez Do the financial markets dictate their strategy to firms?

Philippe Lefebvre: History and practices of the personnel function
 
 

WHILE READING

"Technical democracy" debated: On M. Callon, P. Lascoumes and Y. Barthe’s Agir dans l'incertain. Essai sur la démocratie technique

Franck Aggeri

How can democratic societies cope with the challenges arising out of scientific and technological developments and the excesses that sometimes come along with them? How to define the conditions for a "technical democracy" that would move away from the model that, since the Enlightenment, has been grounded in an alliance between the scientific and political spheres? How to handle the defiance that social groups are manifesting toward experts, technocrats and politicians, whom they accuse of making decisions behind closed doors at the expense of citizens? The sociologists M. Callon, P. Lascoumes and Y. Barthe tackle these questions in a stimulating essay where the voices are heard of ordinary people and emerging social groups, whom decision-makers have ignored for a long time but who now want to have a say. Franck Aggeri shares with us his criticisms and enthusiasm upon reading this book.

Response to Franck Aggeri by Yannick Barthe, Michel Callon and Pierre Lascoumes