Alexandre MallardCentre de Sociologie de l'Innovation · Mines ParisTech
Alexandre Mallard
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Introduction
Skills and Expertise
Publications
Publications (96)
Decreasing our use of energy resources constitutes a major detachment challenge for contemporary society. This article investigates the involvement in this challenge of a recent public policy instrument, the Energy Savings Certificates (ESC) system. It focuses on a particular application in the impledementation of boiler scrappage schemes, through...
This chapter discusses labelling as an operation that is both economic and political. From that angle, it provides a review of existing research stressing three aspects of labelling: the technicalities and institutions it requires, the way it may involve both the functioning and the politicizing of markets, and the implementation of public policies...
This chapter examines the semiotic devices involved in the construction of label signs. It draws on the history of a French label implemented in the construction sector in 2011 so as to enable the identification of small businesses providing good quality services in the home renovation market. The chapter focuses on the modalities of situated prese...
This collected volume analyses labelling as a political and economic operation. It gathers contributions that focus on various domains, including the agri-food sector, the construction sector, eco-labelling, retail, health public policies and the energy sector, considering the use of labels for various objectives, such as providing legal and techni...
Distribution électronique Cairn.info pour S.A.C.. © S.A.C.. Tous droits réservés pour tous pays. La reproduction ou représentation de cet article, notamment par photocopie, n'est autorisée que dans les limites des conditions générales d'utilisation du site ou, le cas échéant, des conditions générales de la licence souscrite par votre établissement....
Distribution électronique Cairn.info pour S.A.C.. © S.A.C.. Tous droits réservés pour tous pays. La reproduction ou représentation de cet article, notamment par photocopie, n'est autorisée que dans les limites des conditions générales d'utilisation du site ou, le cas échéant, des conditions générales de la licence souscrite par votre établissement....
Dans une société où le marché pénètre toutes les sphères d'activité, la vente devient une épreuve décisive. Or, si de nombreuses études se sont intéressées aux habits neufs du consommateur, les mécanismes du travail commercial restent, eux, mal connus. Cet ouvrage s'intéresse à cette activité qui mobilise l'énergie, les compétences et les savoirs d...
Metamorphosis of a scientific issue
This article examines the research published by the journal Réseaux over the last 30 years, on the role of Information and Communication Technology in companies and markets. It offers a threefold analysis, documenting in turn the history of technology, the forms of scientific cooperation underpinning the producti...
This article investigates the modalities of integration of social, political and moral issues in urban consumption markets. Drawing on the concept of “concerning process,” it examines the specific shaping of urban market agencements at play in this context. The analysis follows the history of the reforms of the French retail implementation provisio...
Exploring how value is perceived by customers can be problematic when the actor who is targeted by the innovation is a collective. This is the case for professional services that are intended for organizations like companies or administrations. In this paper we examine this issue of the multiplicity of expressions of the value of services intended...
This article presents the results of a poll made among the members of the editorial and advisory boards of Valuation Studies. The purpose is to overview the topic that is the remit of the new journal. The poll focused on three questions:
1. Why is the study of valuation topical?
2. What specific issues related to valuation are the most pressing one...
Qu'est-ce que le marché ? Depuis une quinzaine d'années, Michel Callon et les chercheurs du centre de sociologie de l'innovation (CSI) de l'école des mines se penchent sur cette question si peu discutée par les recherches en économie ; ils l'interrogent dans le prolongement des travaux qu'ils menaient autour de la sociologie de la traduction, dite...
What role does the use of goods play in the shaping of commercial exchange? This question is investigated through a case study of the commercialization of Internet access services in France at the end of the 1990s. Specifically, the study traces how the uses of the Internet were made part of the process of qualifying Internet access as a commercial...
Les Très Petites Entreprises font l'objet d'une attention croissante de la part des décideurs économiques et politiques. Comment ces " petits acteurs " de l'économie, qui emploient près du tiers de la population active et produisent une part considérable de la richesse nationale, parviennent-ils à trouver leur place dans le marché ? Cet ouvrage nou...
Dans certains secteurs de l'économie, l'innovation technologique conduit à des produits et des services dont les usages sont partiellement imprévisibles. Les firmes exerçant dans ces secteurs sont confrontées à la difficulté d'assurer la commercialisation de biens économiques dont les utilisations ne sont pas encore complètement connues. Si tout un...
Comme l'ont montré les recherches conduites récemment en sociologie, la mise en œuvre des échanges marchands repose sur un travail de cadrage permettant aux acteurs économique de déterminer les modalités de rencontre de l'offre et de la demande. C'est bien le propre de l'organisation commerciale que de produire les processus et les dispositifs néce...
The federating theme of Web 2.0 applies to the most recent information technologies, one of the essential properties of which is extensive diffusion in the private and professional spheres. This article examines the corporate uses of Web 2.0, through an exploratory study of one of its most emblematic tools, the Wiki. The authors examine the process...
This article proposes an analysis of the business card uses. It draws on a qualitative study conducted with people engaged in rich and complex social relations in the frame of their work activity. Two categories of practices are scrutinized: exchanging business cards on the one hand, sorting and filing them on the other. The study displays the spec...
The capacity of very small enterprises (VSE) to boost the economic fabric is currently subject to a certain weight of expectation. Researchers emphasise the role which small institutions can play in an economy which is increasingly based on flexibility and demands continual adaptation to market fluctuations. VSE employ a relatively diverse range of...
WORKING, MOVING ABOUT AND COMMUNICATING: EARLY RESULTS OF A SURVEY
This article, which draws on a quantitative survey of a sample of the working population in France, takes working environments as a starting point. It presents an overview of specific configurations, which helps to explain the articulation between work and the business enterprise, b...
This article, which draws on a quantitative survey of a sample of the working population in France, takes working environments as a starting point. It presents an overview of specific configurations, which helps to explain the articulation between work and the business enterprise, both at home and in mobile situations. In this way the concept of te...
[fre] La capacité des très petites entreprises (TPE) à dynamiser le tissu économique fait aujourd'hui l'objet d'un certain nombre d'attentes. Les chercheurs, tout comme les pouvoirs publics, mettent l'accent sur le rôle que peuvent jouer des petites structures, dans une économie qui repose de plus en plus sur la flexibilité et exige une adaptation...
WHAT HAPPENS IN THE SHOPS OF A TELECOM OPERATOR? Ethnographic study on the referencing of commercial goods
This article examines the issue of consumers’ choices and assessments of goods in the shops of a telecom operator. Based on an ethnographic study in several such shops, the authors identify two of the most typical mediations of these distribut...
Cet article analyse un matériel récolté au cours de plusieurs enquêtes dans les départements de vente de France Télécom. Il compare trois modes de relation au client: la situation où ce dernier contacte l'entreprise par téléphone (le « téléphone réactif »), celle dans laquelle c'est le vendeur qui le contacte (le téléphone « pro-actif » ou télémark...
In the field of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), innovation requires a relevant understanding of uses. This concern has benefited considerably from the social sciences. Specialists in sociology, psychology, marketing and ergonomics have for a long time been invited to take part in innovation projects in order to inform designers a...
Le t�l�phone constitue un moyen important pour abolir les distances dans l'�change �conomique qui conna�t un succ�s renouvel�, comme le montre le d�veloppement important que connaissent actuellement les activit�s commerciales et de service au t�l�phone. De quelle fa�on peut-on comprendre la possibilit� de construire � distance des interactions de p...
À growing number of SMEs structures their activity in groups. This article questions the nature of this phenomenon of capital intensive and financial concentration observable in the sector of the small companies. It contextualises the process of group formation for SMEs in the recent industrial history, taking into account the relations between the...
The telephone's affordability and availability makes it a basic resource for entrepreneurs to use to connect with investors and with consumers, regardless of distance. Research is lacking in regard to the current role of the telephone in today's businesses. This study seeks to fill the gap, specifically by looking at telephone usage in very small b...
Cet article analyse un matériel récolté au cours de plusieurs enquêtes dans les départements de vente de France Télécom. Il compare trois modes de relation au client: la situation où ce dernier contacte l’entreprise par téléphone (le « téléphone réactif »), celle dans laquelle c’est le vendeur qui le contacte (le téléphone « pro-actif » ou télémark...
Measuring physico-chemical properties and comparing them with the limit values specified in standards constitutes a very common way of qualifying risks in the domain of environment and public health. The aim of this article is to examine this treatment of risks as regards the application of the precautionary principle. It rests on a case study of t...
The approach adopted by François Xavier de Vaujany draws from “structurationist” research in English-speaking social sciences, a current that shares with the sociology of technology a vision of the contextual and negotiated nature of the links between technical and organizational phenomena. Various trajectories in the way organizations use new info...
Ce texte s’appuie sur une enquête réalisée sur un plateau de vente pro-active. Dans ce genre d’activité (que l’on appelle également télémarketing), ce sont les vendeurs qui sont à l’initiative de l’appel téléphonique. Nous proposerons donc une analyse fine, "au niveau micro", des formats d’information et des dispositifs conventionnels qui soutienne...
BY WORD OF MOUTH Analysis of commercial use of the telephone in small businesses
The telephone is a tool regularly used by all very small businesses (VSBs) to create and maintain relations with their economic environment. This article, which draws on a quantitative survey on over 800 VSBs, analyses commercial use of the telephone by combining busin...
On propose ici de situer brièvement l'approche adoptée par François-Xavier de Vaujany dans son texte sur les figures de la gestion du changement sociotechnique. Cette approche s'inspire des travaux issus du structurationnisme anglo-saxon, un courant qui partage avec la sociologie des technologies une vision du caractère contextuel et négocié des li...
Many big firms have developed intranets in association with introducing new ways of organizing work and managing know-how. This study of France Telecom’s intranet brings to light two contrasting types of productivity in the social and organizational uses to which this new technology has been put: creativity and rationalization. The links between th...
Many big firms have developed intranets in association with introducing new ways of organizing work and managing know-how. This study of France Telecom’s intranet brings to light two contrasting types of productivity in the social and organizational uses to which this new technology has been put: creativity and rationalization. The links between th...
The construction of metrological systems is an important topic in the study of research-technology. Research-technologists have to elaborate materials and procedures that help certify the reliability of the instruments they develop. Building an instrument’s metrology is a task involving much more than strictly technical work: diplomacy, financial r...
In the consumer goods market, comparative testing is decisive for adjusting supply and demand. Following an examination of how the social sciences have tried to describe and explain the production of consumer information, an analysis is made of how comparative tests are drawn up. The testing and recommendation of telecommunication consumer goods in...
In the consumer goods market, comparative testing is decisive for adjusting supply and demand. Following an examination of how the social sciences have tried to describe and explain the production of consumer information, an analysis is made of how comparative tests are drawn up. The testing and recommendation of telecommunication consumer goods in...
Despite it being a subject of growing interest in research on standardization, the description of the standardization process itself is incomplete. With a view to articulating coordination by the committee and market coordination better, the author proposes an analysis of the standardization procedure as the writing of a text allowing socio-technic...
Historical and sociological studies have shown that precision measurement and metrology play an important social and scientific role. This paper contrasts the dynamics of four metrological configurations. The first concerns an instrument for routine car repair. It displays the network of institutions, conventions and procedures allowing for the con...
L'auteur a observé, au cours d'une rencontre internationale, une demi-douzaine d'équipes de recherche européennes, toutes chargées de la mesure de la pollution atmosphérique. L'objet de la rencontre était de comparer les performances respectives des appareils de chacune de ces équipes. Le suivi des réunions et des discussions entre chercheurs a per...
During an international meeting, a half-dozen European research teams with the assignment of measuring air pollution were observed. The meeting had the objective of comparing the performance of each team's scientific instruments. By following up on meetings and discussions among researchers, light was shed on the way these scientists created relati...
Ce texte s’appuie sur une enquête réalisée sur un plateau de vente pro-active. Dans ce genre d’activité (que l’on appelle également télémarketing), ce sont les vendeurs qui sont à l’initiative de l’appel téléphonique. Nous proposerons donc une analyse fine, "au niveau micro", des formats d’information et des dispositifs conventionnels qui soutienne...
Projects
Projects (2)
The purpose of the MASKOVID project is to examine, from a social science point of view, the contribution of masks as a tool to fight the Covid-19 pandemic, among other possible means.
The project proposes to address the social, economic and political issues raised by the use or non-use of masks, based on a very diverse set of data: calls for written and photographic testimonies, situated observations, data ‘scraped’ from the Internet, classic and textometric studies of the daily press and other databases (patents, medical literature, etc.).
The team brings together four partner UMRs (Armines in Paris, CERTOP and LISST in Toulouse, GREDEG in Nice) and seven experienced researchers specializing in the analysis of sociotechnical objects, all sharing the same analytical framework: Madeleine Akrich, Cédric Calvignac, Roland Canu, Franck Cochoy, Gérald Gaglio, Alexandre Mallard and Morgan Meyer.
The purpose of the MASKOVID project is to examine, from a social science point of view, the contribution of masks as a tool to fight the virus, among other possible means. Covid-19 poses an unprecedented challenge in terms of health protection: in the absence of a vaccine and specific drugs, other ways of combating the disease must be found.
The project proposes to address the social, economic and political issues raised by the use or non-use of masks, based on a very diverse set of data: calls for written and photographic testimonies, situated observations, data ‘scraped’ from the Internet, classic and textometric studies of the daily press and other databases (patents, medical literature, etc.).
The team brings together four partner UMRs (Armines in Paris, CERTOP and LISST in Toulouse, GREDEG in Nice) and seven experienced researchers specializing in the analysis of sociotechnical objects, all sharing the same analytical framework: Madeleine Akrich, Cédric Calvignac, Roland Canu, Franck Cochoy, Gérald Gaglio, Alexandre Mallard and Morgan Meyer.
