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Electric mobility analysis: contributions from sociology
Abstract
This paper discusses ways that the question of social acceptability of eco-innovation can usefully be addressed with sociological methodologies and theoretical frameworks contributions, both in the study and the management of innovation processes. It will first discuss the types of contributions that sociology can provide into innovation management, through a specific conception of users. The particularity of sociological contribution reposes on the vision of the users. It will secondly show how the sociological approach allows to observe and build up a picture of the interactions between the different types of economic actors involved in the innovation process. Our examples are drawn from a program implementing intelligent charging infrastructures for electric vehicles. We show how economic sociology of uses and consumption permits to define user positionality in the innovation network. The understanding of the interactional processes inside our socio-technical space permits us to identify institutional impediments that slow down social acceptability of an eco-innovation such as the electric vehicle.
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p>Le Conseil régional de Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur a demandé en 2008 à l’équipe Deixis-Sophia de l’école Télécom ParisTech une intervention sociologique pour accompagner la mise en place de « PACA Labs », programme d’aide à l’innovation visant à soutenir des expérimentations « grandeur nature » de produits et services numériques en région.L’objectif de l’intervention était d’aider le Conseil Régional dans le développement et la conduite de PACA Labs. La commande portait à la fois sur l’évaluation du programme et sur la construction d’un cadre méthodologique visant à intégrer les usagers dans les projets d’expérimentation, ainsi que sur la participation des chercheurs à la gouvernance du programme. L’article propose une contribution réflexive sur les conditions et les dynamiques de la relation entre production de connaissances et participation à l’action dans une situation d’intervention sociologique. Son objet est d’interroger le dilemme expert-chercheur tel que les auteurs l’ont vécu au travers de cette expérience de commande institutionnelle.</p
La recherche partenariale reste en France un mode de recherche peu connu et pratiqué à la marge, malgré des incitations politiques et institutionnelles européennes et nationales. La recherche partenariale est bien souvent le résultat d’un système d’interactions et d’apprentissages construit à un niveau microsocial entre les chercheurs et les partenaires des autres milieux professionnels. Cet article a pour ambition de soumettre la recherche partenariale à une analyse menée par l’observation de pratiques de conventions de recherche et de dispositifs de recherche dédiés (PICRI avec la société civile, CIFRE en entreprise) développés en France. Des questions d’ordre théorique orientent nos réflexions pour cette analyse : avec quels concepts et quelle démarche théorique l’analyser ? La question centrale à laquelle nous répondons est de comprendre les processus et les épreuves permettant une « co-construction » de savoirs entre les acteurs partenaires des recherches. L’article pose au final les bases d’éléments de définition de la recherche partenariale.Collaborative research or research partnerships is not well known in France and remains a marginal activity despite support by national policies and those of the European Union. Collaborative research often arises through a series of interactions and learning experiences at a micro social level between research scientists and partners from other professional sectors. This article attempts to analyze this type of research in the light of practical observations on research agreements and specialized research programs developed in France (PICRI, CIFRE). Theoretical questions have guided our thinking in this analysis; what concepts, theories and methods should be used? We attempt to answer the central question of understanding the processes and the practical attempts that lead to a ‘co-construction’ of knowledge between research partners. In conclusion, the article suggests elements that could form the basis for a definition of research partnerships.
This article presents a case study of nine projects of eco-innovation in the Aquitaine timber industry. These projects are all collaborative projects linking business, transfer centres, laboratories and eventually universities. The purpose of the article is to explore how actors perceive and articulate the environmental and non-environmental objectives of their project. We use original data collected from a questionnaire dealing with the objectives of eco-innovation and sent to the whole set of actors involved in the projects. By using PCA, we show that the projects studied are in fact guided by a complex and variable structure of goals, in which environmental objectives are not always a priority. Our analysis shows that actors combine environmental and techno-economic objectives in some specific compromises.
Résumé : L'article propose une analyse de la performance collective des pôles de compétitivité basée sur les liens qui peuvent être établis entre l'économie de la connaissance et la théorie des clusters. Si les clusters tirent leur attractivité de leur charisme géographique et des flux de connaissances qui y circulent, nous montrons que la proximité géographique entre les firmes innovantes est loin d'être une condition de leur performance et de leur pérennité. Parce que la connaissance est un bien systémique et complexe qui émerge de la combinaison de briques de connaissances existantes, les firmes doivent mixer des stratégies d'appropriation (des) et d'accessibilité (aux) connaissances en optimisant leur position dans des réseaux selon les phases de la chaîne de valeur de la connaissance. Cette organisation collective retira un avantage de la proximité géographique dès lors que : (i) La distance cognitive entre les firmes permet aux firmes d'accéder à la connaissance externe tout en maintenant un bon niveau d'appropriation des connaissances internes, et ce afin de favoriser la créativité. (ii) L'existence de réseaux sociaux favorise les flux de connaissances entre firmes cognitivement distantes et transforment les capacités de créativité qui en découlent en standards technologiques.
The sustainable product-service system (SPSS) concept highlights that achieving sustainability requires changes in both ‘production’ and ‘consumption’. Nevertheless, attention has focused mainly on ‘production’. This paper enriches the SPSS approach with insights from the sociology of consumption and practice theory to provide a deeper understanding of the use of products and services in daily life contexts. The paper advances three key insights related to: a) the internal dynamics of user practices, b) the strength of linkages of practice elements (loose and tight coupling), c) external linkages to other practices. These insights are mobilised to provide a deeper understanding of the uptake and diffusion of innovations such as SPSS. The insights are illustrated with two cases in which interventions designed to stimulate diffusion have had differential success: energy efficient light bulbs and low temperature laundry. Implications for understanding the diffusion of SPSS are discussed.
This article examines the sales practices of a French agricultural supplies company whose products have uncertain qualities and contested effects. We show that this characteristic leads the sales technicians responsible for selling these products to develop arguments that make extensive use of a rhetoric aiming to detach the clients from their competitors. Given how difficult it is to establish an objective assessment of products’ intrinsic qualities, we also show how attachments are built around a broad-ranging solution that in particular includes providing consulting services for farmers. More generally, in the analysis of sales work, the commerce of these uncertain products invites one to think of processes of attachment and detachment in symmetrical terms.
Market Transactions, Ritual Exchange, Personal Relationships. Economie Ethnography after the Great Divide What . tools are available to the ethnographer to describe transactions? To answer this question, the author draws upon the1 results of anthropology, rid of any forms of the Great Divide between the West and the rest of the world. She uses a ethnographic examples to formulate four analytical; propositions: 1. differentiating between the nature of the relationships and the nature of the goods exchanged, it is possible to analyse the uses of money in personal relationships. 2. By distinguishing ; the types of transaction according to the gap between transfer of goods and its counterpart, it is possible to clarify the opposition between transactions without any gap (immediate reciprocity), transactions with an infinite gap (pure gift or simple transfer) and transactions : with a temporal , gap (Maussian gift or delayed reciprocity). 3.: By giving access to indigenous interpretations, ethnography allows us to analyse misunderstandings or conflicts of interpretation at the core of transactions. 4. The distinction between market transactions and i personal relationships may be considered a result of mental operations of These operations are carried out not only by observers, but also by the partners in the transaction. In every instance, the ethnographer observes the ritual forms of exchange, which influence both: indigenous" and^ scientific interpretations.
SOCIAL ACCEPTABILITY : HOW SOCIAL DETERMINENT CAN INFLUENCE ANALYSIS OF TECHNOLOGY SYSTEM ACCEPTABILITY
Acceptance literature gives us many competing models (e.g., Technology acceptance model, The motivational model, the model of PC utilization, Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology...) to underline how we can predict user acceptance of information technology. All these models take their origins in the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA, Ajzen & Fishbein, 1975) and in the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB, Ajzen, 1980) which are classical models for predicting new behavior.
In the TPB and TRA, the most important predictor of behavior is behavioral intention and Intention is predicted by attitude, perceived behavioral control and subjective norms. We find all this determinants in acceptance models. In our point of view, the influence of norms is largely neglected. In fact, researches often just consider the individual acceptance (e.g., utility and utilisability). The importance of norms or social context is now recognized in social psychology.
In this paper we try to underline how norms and social context can contribute to knowledge about user acceptance technology. Our project aims to bring psychosocial contribution to the question of acceptance. According to Doise (1982), when studying an object, social psychology research might follow four levels of analyses : 1 / the intra-individual level (explaining behavior in terms of how people organize knowledge and experiences in their mind) ; 2 / the inter-individual level (explanation of behave in terms of social relationships) ; 3 / « positional » level (explanations are found in social status) ; and 4 / ideological level (understanding behavior in terms of culture, social values). We think that in order to predict the use of technology we should consider all those levels.
Over the last ten years, scholars in human geography have been paying increasing theoretical and empirical attention to understanding the ways in which the production of scale is implicated in the production of space. Overwhelmingly, this work reflects a social construc- tionist approach, which situates capitalist production (and the role of the state, capital, labor and nonstate political actors) as of central concern. What is missing from this discussion about the social construction of scale is serious attention to the relevance of social reproduction and consumption. In this article I review the important literature on scale construction and argue for enlarging our scope for understanding scale to include the complex processes of social repro- duction and consumption. I base my critique on a short case study which illustrates that attention to other processes besides production and other systems of domination besides capitalism can enhance our theorizing and improve our attempts to effect real social change.
This paper investigates how such a trivial device as a shopping cart may surprisingly contribute to shaping exchanges in supermarkets. First, the shopping cart completely modifies consumers' calculations. It does so by leading them to accomplish particular gestures, by transforming a budgetary constraint into a volumetric one, and by providing them with true calculative tools. Second, shopping with a cart also implies some 'planned' cognitive processes. These processes concern interplay between family needs, selection equipment (such as a shopping list) and market information (packaging, for example). The combination of these elements moves the consumer from mere calculation (price-based computing) to 'qualculation' (i.e. quality-based rational judgements). Third, and in particular, since it favours the transformation of the individual consumer into a collective one (or 'cluster', i.e. a small group of people gathering around the same device), a shopping cart functions as a scene or as a frame for collective 'calqulation' (from the French verb 'calquer', i.e. adjusting one's standpoint to that of another, and vice versa).
Discussions of the spatiality of globalization have largely focused on place-based attributes that fix globalization locally, on globalization as the construction of scale, and on networks as a distinctive feature of contemporary globalization. By contrast, position within the global economy is frequently regarded as anachronistic in a shrinking, networked world. A critical review of how place, scale, and networks are used as metaphors for the spatiality of globalization suggests that space/time still matters. Positionality (position in relational space/time within the global economy) is conceptualized as both shaping and shaped by the trajectories of globalization and as influencing the conditions of possibility of places in a globalizing world. The wormhole is invoked as a way of describing the concrete geographies of positionality and their non-Euclidean relationship to the Earth's surface. The inclusion of positionality challenges the simplicity of pro- and antiglobalization narratives and can change how we think about globalization and devise strategies to alter its trajectory.
Since the early 1970s, debates have raged throughout the social sciences concerning the process of ‘‘globalization’’ ^ an essentially contested term whose meaning is as much a source of controversy today as it was over two decades ago, when systematic research ¢rst began on the topic. Contemporary globalization research encompasses an immensely broad range of themes, from the new international division of labor, changing forms of industrial organization, and processes of urbanregional restructuring to transformations in the nature of state power, civil society, citizenship, democracy, public spheres, nationalism, politico-cultural identities, localities, and architectural forms, among many others. 2 Yet despite this proliferation of globalization research, little theoretical consensus has been established in the social sciences concerning the interpretation of even the most rudimentary elements of the globalization process ^ e.g., its historical periodization, its causal determinants, and its socio-political implications. 3 Nevertheless, within this whirlwind of opposing perspectives, a remarkably broad range of studies of globalization have devoted detailed attention to the problematic of space, its social production, and its historical transformation. Major strands of contemporary globalization research have been permeated by geographical concepts ^ e.g., ‘‘space-time compression,’’ ‘‘space of £ows,’’ ‘‘space of places,’’ ‘‘deterritorialization,’’ ‘‘glocalization,’’ the ‘‘global-local nexus,’’ ‘‘supra
In most of the western countries, car is the prevalent means of transport for local mobility. At the same time, sensitivity
to environmental issues is increasing, correlated to the consciousness that carbon dioxide emissions have to be reduced. In
regard to these two trends (individual mobility and public opinions favourable to a reduction of carbon emissions), energy-efficient
vehicles will probably develop in the future—car manufacturers actually prepare new offers for the mass market. Comparable
cases have occurred during the last decades—probably more modest but full of learning: some local authorities have promoted
innovations based on electric vehicles in the 1990s, and some people have chosen this kind of cars for their daily travels.
This article deals with these pioneers (This article comes from a communication at the ECEEE Summer Study, June 2009, Panel
6: Energy efficiency in transport and mobility.). Reporting studies carried out in 2006 and 2008, we intend to identify the
reasons of this innovative modal choice, to show the difficulties that electric vehicle drivers then encountered and to analyse
the patterns of use that governed their mobility and their use of electric vehicles.
KeywordsElectric vehicle–Households–Sociology–Individual mobility
La question posée par la revue Tracés du rapport entre les sciences sociales et les entreprises est un problème ancien, voire classique. J'ai essayé de répondre à la problématique de la journée d'étude "Sciences sociales et monde de l'entreprise" en trois points. Dans un premier temps, j'aborde, en les contextualisant, les éléments d'ambiguïté ou d'incompréhension entre le monde académique et celui de l'entreprise. Dans un deuxième temps, je montre qu'il y a des objets transversaux et communs aux sciences sociales et aux entreprises. Enfin, je rappelle, au sujet des rapports entre sciences sociales et entreprises, qu'il s'agit là d'un débat ancien et récurrent. Je coordonne en effet un programme national sur l'histoire de la "pensée managériale". Lorsque l'on évoque ce terme face à des universitaires orthodoxes, ceux-ci affichent ouvertement leur scepticisme. Pourtant, lorsque l'on prend la peine de s'y intéresser, il existe bien une pensée managériale, dont il convient de faire l'histoire.
Face à la globalisation des marchés et de la concurrence, les constructeurs automobiles sont contraints de réviser leurs stratégies de développement international. La décennie passée, plusieurs entreprises ont choisi de se rapprocher de leurs concurrents dans le but de figurer parmi les leaders mondiaux du secteur. Or, les performances atteintes par le biais des opérations réalisées connaissent de fortes divergences, notamment en raison de la gestion des différences culturelles et organisationnelles entre les entités associées. Cette recherche vise à identifier les facteurs susceptibles de contribuer au succès des rapprochements transfrontaliers. L’étude empirique est fondée sur une analyse approfondie du processus d’intégration de l’alliance Renault-Nissan.
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 télémarketing), et celle où il se présente en boutique. Ces trois canaux entraînent de nombreuses différences dans la tournure des interactions commerciales. Ils caractérisent trois figures de « découverte » et d'engagement réciproque qui s'entremêlent et se renforcent.
L'étude de 130 cas de collaborations entre des laboratoires du CNRS et des entreprises permet d'analyser l'encastrement des échanges entre organisations dans les réseaux de relations individuelles. Elle montre que si les collaborations sont effectivement souvent initiées par des réseaux de relations individuelles, il existe plusieurs mécanismes, appelés dans ce texte processus de découplage, permettant aux organisations de s'affranchir de cet encastrement initial, à tel point que les collaborations ne gardent que peu de traces de leurs conditions de création dans leur contenu et leur déroulement. Par contre, le choix des partenaires et leur localisation sont tributaires de ce moment de genèse des échanges, ce qui explique le phénomène bien connu des effets de proximité spatiale.
Cet article examine, du point de vue de la socio-économie, comment consommateurs et producteurs s’y prennent pour gérer leurs « embarras du choix » respectifs (diversité de l’offre et de la concurrence d’un côté, difficulté à choisir entre produits similaires de l’autre). En reprenant la métaphore de l’âne de Buridan, qui hésite entre deux quantité de nourriture identiques, l’auteur montre d’une part que le problème du consommateur consiste souvent à convertir l’idée générale qu’il se fait du produit en choix de telle ou telle de ses occurrences particulières, et d’autre part que la gestion moderne vise précisément à « équiper » la décision du consommateur pour le sortir de l’embarras du choix entre produits similaires. Nos choix de consommation individuels apparaissent ainsi comme le fruit d’un arbitrage récurrent, complexe et difficilement prévisible entre notre désir d’effectuer des choix libres et/ou pertinents (s’en remettre à soi-même), et notre souci de ne pas consacrer un temps et un effort excessifs à la sélection des produits (accepter les dispositifs du prêt-à-choisir).
Comment un acteur individuel ou collectif s’y prend-il pour avoir prise sur ses publics ? Une telle question consiste à engager une sociologie du « travail marchand » ou plus généralement du travail relationnel orientée vers l’étude des acteurs et des dispositifs qui permettent de rapprocher les pôles opposés de l’organisation et du marché, de l’institution et de l’espace public, et vers la compréhension de leurs modes d’articulation. Il s’agit de montrer comment et par quels moyens un contexte réglé, dominé par les procédures de gestion ou d’administration, tente d’avoir prise sur ces collectifs moins connus, plus fuyants, plus fluides, que l’on désigne sous les noms de citoyens, d’usagers, d’électeurs, d’acheteurs, de consommateurs ou de clients. Pour ce faire nous proposons d’étudier une figure centrale du travail relationnel, que nous nommons la « captation des publics ». Par captation des publics, nous désignons l’ensemble des opérations qui s’efforcent d’avoir prise, d’attirer vers soi, de garder ce ou ceux que l’on a attiré(s). Nous verrons que la captation des publics consiste à mettre en œuvre des dispositifs qui s’efforcent de tirer parti des dispositions que l’on prête aux personnes pour dévier leur trajectoire, les soustraire à l’espace extérieur, les placer sous contrôle. L’exemple des différentes modalités de captation mises en œuvre par le loup dans Le Petit chaperon rouge nous permettra notamment de réfléchir aux ressorts particuliers des actions et des dispositifs de captation, mais aussi d’esquisser une typologie de ces dispositifs tels qu’ils se rencontrent sur les marchés et l’espace public d’aujourd’hui.
Les ressorts de l'intrigue sont connus. D'un côté l'invention, c'est-à-dire les idées, les projets, les plans mais aussi les prototypes et les usines pilotes : en un mot tout ce qui précède la première et incertaine rencontre avec le client et le jugement qu'il rendra. De l'autre côté, l'innovation proprement dite, c'est-à-dire la première transaction commerciale réussie ou plus généralement la sanction positive de l'utilisateur. Entre les deux, un destin qui se joue selon un scénario mystérieux. Des firmes qui périclitent ou au contraire prospèrent, des nations qui déclinent ou, à l'inverse, deviennent hégémoniques. Un projet jugé prometteur par tous les spécialistes et qui s'effondre soudainement tandis qu'un autre, auquel personne ne croyait plus, se transforme brusquement en succès commercial. Et toujours les mêmes questions. Comment expliquer ces succès et ces échecs imprévisibles ? Comment rendre compte de ces retournements inattendus, de ces résistances qui se transforment en adhésion ou de ces enthousiasmes qui se muent en scepticisme puis en rejet ?
Lorsque l'offre et la demande se définissent principalement par la qualité et qu'une relation asymétrique interdit au client, à la différence du vendeur, de séparer aisément la bonne qualité de la mauvaise, l'échange relève plus du jugement que du prix, il dépend plus d'une organisation sociale fondée sur le réseau et la confiance que des forces du marché néo-classique. Cette interprétation, qui s'appuie aussi bien sur l'économie de la profession d'avocat que sur une part importante et croissante de l'économie globale, permet d'avancer que le jugement représente, à côté de l'autorité et du prix, un principe d'organisation de la vie économique. /// When supply and demand are mainly defined by quality and an asymmetrical relation makes the client, unlike the salesman, unable to differentiate between good and bad quality, his purchase is based on judgment rather than on the price; he is more closely related to a social organisation with its network of trust, than to the neoclassical market. This interpretation, founded on both the economy of the legal profession and on an important growing part of global economy, allows one to state that alongside authority and prices, judgment represents an organisational factor of economic life. /// Wenn Angebot und Nachfrage hauptsächlich durch die Qualität bestimmt werden und eine Asymmetrische Beziehung dem Kunden, im Gegensatz zum Verkäufer, verbietet, mühelos die gute von der schlechten Qualität zu unterscheiden, fusst der Austausch eher auf einem Preiskriterium und ist eher von einer auf dem Netzwerk und dem Vertrauen begründeten sozialen Organisation abhängig als von den Kräften des neoklassischen Marktes. Diese Auslegung, die sich sowohl auf die Wirtschaft des Rechtsanwaltberufes stützt als auch auf einen wichtigen und ansteigenden Anteil der Gesamtwirtschaft, erlaubt die Behauptung, dass die Beurteilung, neben der Autorität und dem Preis, ein Organisationsprinzip des Wirtschaftslebens darstellt. /// Cuando la oferta y la demanda se definen principalmente por la calidad y que una relación asimétrica prohibe al cliente, a diferencia del vendedor, de separar facilmente la buena calidad de la mala calidad, el intercambio depende más de una organización social fundada sobre la red y la confianza que de las fuerzas del mercado neoclásico. Esta interpretación, que se apoya tanto sobre la economía de la profesión de abogado como sobre una parte importante y creciente de la economía global, sugiere que el juicio al lado de la autoridad y del precio, representa un principio de organización de la vida económica.
Le renouveau de la sociologie économique s'appuie sur la réaffirmation de la dimension sociale de l'action économique en postulant que cette dernière est toujours socialement située. Contrairement aux postulats de la microéconomie standard, l'échange économique n'est jamais indépendant des relations de personne à personne et des facteurs extra-économiques. En ce sens, il fait toujours société. L'article, tout en reconnaissant les apports de la Nouvelle Sociologie Économique (NSE), se propose de discuter ce postulat en interrogeant la manière dont la NSE conceptualise la frontière entre le social et le non-social au sein des échanges marchands. Ce travail montre que la NSE, en s'attachant essentiellement aux formes de socialisation " primaire " du marché, propose une vision " intimiste " du lien social qui l'empêche de penser toute la spécificité sociologique de la relation marchande. Dans la perspective de saisir cette spécificité, une relecture microsociologique des analyses simmeliennes de l'action réciproque et des approches ethnographiques récentes des relations marchandes permet de repenser les formes élémentaires du lien social en insistant sur la socialisation " secondaire " du marché. Cette réflexion critique débouche sur l'esquisse d'un programme de recherches visant à rendre compte des conditions de fonctionnement de la vie économique moderne la plus ordinaire et fondée sur les relations " purement " marchandes. /// The revival of economic sociology is based on the reassertion of the social dimension of economic action on the premise that the latter is always situated socially. Unlike assumptions of standard micro-economics, an economic exchange is never independent of person-to-person relations or of extra-economic factors. In this case it's still part of society. This article, while recognizing the contributions coming from the New Economic Sociology (NES), offers a discussion on these assumptions by questioning the way in which the NES conceptualizes the boundary between the social and the non-social part of market exchanges. This work demonstrates that the NES, while adhering essentially to the characteristics of " primary " socialization of the market, offers an " intimist " vision of social cohesion which prevents it from considering the complete sociological specificity of the market cohesion. In view of taking advantage of this specificity, with a microsociological reading of Simmelian analyses of reciprocal action and recent ethnographical approaches of market cohesion, it is possible to re-imagine the elementary forms of social cohesion by insisting on the " secondary " socialization of the market. This critical reflection leads to the outlining of a research programme aiming to report on the operating conditions of the most ordinary modern economic life and based on " purely " market relations. /// Der Aufschwung der Wirtschaftssoziologie stützt sich auf die erneute Bekräftigung der sozialen Dimension in der Wirtschaftshandlung, indem sie davon ausgeht, daß diese Handlung jeweils in einem sozialen Zusammenhang steht. Im Gegensatz zu den Postulaten der gewöhnlichen Mikrowirtschaft ist der wirtschaftliche Austausch in keinem Fall unabhängig von den Beziehungen von Person zu Person und von außerwirtschaftlichen Faktoren. In diesem Sinne ist er immer " sozial " anzusehen. Dieser Aufsatz, der die Beiträge der Neue Wirtschaftssoziologie anerkennt, möchte dieses Postulat zur Diskussion stellen und dazu die Art ansprechen, in der die Neue Wirtschaftssoziologie die Grenze zwischen dem Sozialen und dem Nicht-Sozialen innerhalb des Handelsaustauschs konzeptualisiert. Diese Arbeit zeigt, daß die Neue Wirtschaftssoziologie durch bevorzugte Betrachtung der Formen der " primären " Sozialisierung des Markts eine " intimistische " Vision der sozialen Verhältnisse vorschlägt, die sie daran hindert, die soziologische Spezifizität, der Handelsbeziehung in ihrem ganzen Ausmaß durchzudenken. Im Hinblick auf diese Spezifizität, erlaubt eine mikrosoziologische Neulesung der Simmelschen Analysen der gegenseitigen Handlung und der kürzlichen ethnographischen Untersuchungen der Handelsbeziehungen, die elementaren Formen der sozialen Bindung neuzudenken und die " sekundäre " Sozialisierung des Markts zu unterstreichen. Diese kritische Überlegung führt zur Skizzierung eines Forschungsprogramms, mit dem die Funktionsbedingungen des gewöhnlichsten modernen Wirtschaftslebens dargelegt werden sollen, das auf " reinen " Handelsbeziehungen begründet ist. /// El renovación de la sociología económica se apoya, postula y confirma que la dimensión social de la acción económica es socialmente importante todavía. Contrariamente a los postulados de la micro-economía standard, el intercambio económico nunca es independiente de las relaciones de persona a persona y de los factores extra-económicos. En ese sentido esta siempre en sociedad. Reconociendo todos los aportes de la Nueva Sociología Económica (NSE), el artículo se propone discutir ese postulado interrogando la manera como la NSE conceptualiza la frontera entre lo social y lo no-social dentro de los intercambios mercantiles. Este trabajo muestra que la NSE, uniéndose esencialmente a las formas de socialización " primaria " del mercado propone una visión " intimista " del lazo social que le impide de analizar toda la especificidad sociológica de la relación mercantil. En la perspectiva de comprender esta especificidad, una relectura microsociológica de los análisis simmelianos de la acción recíproca y con los estudios etnográficos recientes de las relaciones mercantiles, ambos permiten de reflexionar sobre las formas elementales del lazo social insistiendo sobre la socialización " secundaria " del mercado. Intentando dar cuenta de las condiciones ordinaris de funcionamiento de la vida económica moderna esta reflexión crítica desemboca sobre el ensayo de un programa de investigación basado en las relaciones " puramente mercantiles ".
It is often argued that ANT fails to offer a satisfactory theory of the actor which is allegedly endowed either with limitless power, or deprived of any room for manoeuvre at all. The aim of this paper is to show that the absence of a theory of the actor, when combined with the role attributed to non-humans in the description of action, is precisely one of the strengths of ANT that it is most important to preserve. This is because this combination makes it possible to explain the existence and the working of economic markets. Any particular market is the consequence of operations of disentanglement, framing, internalization and externalization. ANT makes it possible to explain these operations and the emergence of calculating agents. Homo economicus is neither a pure invention, nor an impoverished vision of a real person. It indeed exists, but is the consequence of a process in which economic science places an active role. The conclusion is that ANT has passed one of the most demanding tests: that of the market.
The supermarket brings into play not just supply and demand but also a whole series of ‘middlemen’ who are go-betweens among each other in the marketplace: those who design products, those who enhance products through packaging, and those who are experts in presenting products on store shelves. The roles these three professionals play between products and consumers are analysed; and light is shed on how fragile the market turns out to be as they have conditioned it. These go-betweens ground their decisions on products in their ideas of consumers. They are faced with problems of co-ordination since their interventions are staggered in time and space with, as a result, maladjustment and conflict, all of which tend to diminish the effectiveness of marketing arrangements. Despite being professionals in manipulating objects, they do not manage to condition purchasing behaviours or to force consumers to make certain choices.
If laboratories and research sites are to the twentieth century what monasteries were to the twelfth, then the sources of their power and efficacy remain a mystery. How is it that the ideas and writings that issue from these institutions are able to revolutionise, if only gradually, conditions of work in industry, the universe of consumer goods and lifestyles? How are the discoveries made in Stanford, Gif-sur-Yvette, and Cambridge diffused such that they become universally known and recognised? How are certain technical devices, shaped in research departments of French or English companies, able to conquer markets throughout the world? Anthropological studies of the laboratory have shown that nothing exceptional occurs within the walls of research centres themselves which could account for their influence. These studies have also shown that the force and generality of results obtained cannot be attributed to the existence of a specific scientific method (Latour and Woolgar, 1979; Knorr-Cetina, 1981; Lynch, 1985). Though scientists give certain activities a higher priority than others (see Chapter 3), the former do not possess greater rigour or a logic which enable an observer to distinguish them from the latter.
ECONOMIC MARKETS AS COLLECTIVE CALCULATING DEVICES
How to address empirically the calculative character of markets without dissolving it? In this paper the authors propose a theoretical framework that helps to deal with markets without debunking their calculative properties. In the first section they construct a broad definition of calculation, grounded on the field of STS (science and technology studies). In the following sections they confront this definition to three constituent elements of markets: economic goods, economic agents and economic exchanges. First they examine the question of the calculability of goods: in order to be calculated, goods must be calculable. They then introduce the notion of calculative distributed agencies to understand how these calculable goods are actually calculated. Thirdly, they consider the rules and material devices that organize the encounter between (and aggregation of) individual supplies and demands, i.e. the specific organizations that allow for a calculated exchange and a market output. Those three elements define concrete markets as collective organized devices that calculate compromises on the values of goods. In each, they encounter different versions of their broad definition of calculation that they illustrate with some examples, mainly from the fields of financial markets and mass retail.
Why and to what extent do people make significant purchases from people with whom they have prior noncommercial relationships? Using data from the economic sociology module of the 1996 General Social Survey, we document high levels of within-network exchanges. We argue that transacting with social contacts is effective because it embeds commercial exchanges in a web of obligations and holds the seller's network hostage to appropriate role performance in the economic transaction. It follows that within-network exchanges will be more common in risky transactions that are unlikely to be repeated and in which uncertainty is high. The data support this view. Self-reports about major purchases are consistent with the expectation that exchange frequency reduces the extent of within-network exchanges. Responses to questions about preferences for in-group exchanges support the argument that uncertainty about product and performance quality leads people to prefer sellers with whom they have noncommercial ties. Moreover, people prefer to avoid selling to social contacts under the same conditions that lead buyers to seek such transactions; and people who transact with friends and relatives report greater satisfaction with the results than do people who transact with strangers, especially for risk-laden exchanges.
Institutional innovations aimed at promoting closer relations between university and industry and, more particularly, research partnerships between faculties and firms, have multiplied in the last twenty years. New industry/university research partnerships (IURPs) are generally based upon a hybrid mode of management at all stages of the research process. In this article, we shed new light on the difficult conciliation between the logic of industry, technology and commercial interests on one side, and the logic of academic science and basic research on the other, through the in-depth study of a Canadian IURP — named Infotech1. We draw upon the polity model developed by Boltanski, Thévenot and Chiapello, in order to explore the various logics of justification mobilised by academic and industry participants. We identify the possibilities of compromise that were worked out by Infotech1 participants, and the procedures that were put into place to make these compromises concrete. Finally, we make a few hypotheses about IURPs and the necessary conditions for their success in the future.
User toolkits for innovation were recently proposed as a means to eliminate (costly) exchange of need-related information between users and manufactures in the product development process. The method transfers certain development tasks to users and thereby empowers them to create their own desired product features. This article examines the implications of different levels of opportunities for consumer involvement (OCI) in product development to learn what happens when firms pass design tasks on to consumers. It explores this issue by studying the relation between the employment of user toolkits and the need for firms to support their consumers. An analysis of 78 computer games products and the amount of support given by firms to the consumers of these products suggests that a share of the costs firms save on information acquisition by letting consumers “do it themselves” may eventually reemerge as costs in consumer support. In other words, an increase in opportunities for consumer involvement seems to increase the need for supporting consumers. A promising solution to the problem of support costs is identified, namely, the establishment of consumer–consumer support interaction. A case study of an outlier in terms of firm support to consumers—Westwood Studios—shows that consumers who use toolkits may be willing to support each other. Such interactive problem solving in a firm-established user community is advantageous to the firm, because the process reduces the amount of resources that the firm itself needs to dedicate to the support of consumers using toolkits. Generally, consumer-to-consumer interaction can facilitate problem-solving in the consumer domain, can aid the diffusion of toolkit related knowledge, and potentially can enhance the outcomes produced by the toolkit approach.
In order to develop a more nuanced model of consumer behaviour and the dynamics of behavioural change, this paper argues, the discourse of sustainable consumption needs to draw more fully upon the sociological literature addressing consumption, its varied drivers, and the complex roles it plays within contemporary life. Since its revival in the 1980s, the sociology of consumption has largely focused on the ways in which everyday consumption choices in affluent societies facilitate the process of creating and sustaining a 'self-identity'. While the literature in this field is not without its own flaws, framing sustainable consumption in relation to the problem of self-identity enables us to confront not only the psycho-cultural factors that maintain demand for material goods, but also the difficulties faced by ordinary people as they try to understand and respond ethically to large-scale social and ecological problems within an everyday environment that is highly commodified and individualized. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.
A sample of one hundred and eleven scientific instrument innovations was studied to determine the roles of instrument users and instrument manufacturers in the innovation processes which culminated in the successful commercialization of those instruments. Our key finding was that approximately 80% of the innovations judged by users to offer them a significant increment in functional utility were in fact invented, prototyped and first field-tested by users of the instrument rather than by an instrument manufacturer. The role of the first commercial manufacturer of the innovative instrument in all such cases was restricted, we found, to the performance of product engineering work on the user prototype (work which improved the prototype's reliability, ‘manufacturability’, and convenience of operation, while leaving its principles of operation intact) and to the manufacture and sale of the resulting innovative product. Thus, this research provides the interesting picture of an industry widely regarded as innovative in which the firms comprising the industry are not in themselves necessarily innovative, but rather — in 80% of the innovations sampled — only provide the product engineering and manufacturing function for innovative instrument users.We term the innovation pattern observed in scientific instruments a ‘user dominated’ one and suggest that such a pattern may play a major role in numerous industries.
In this short and deliberately provocative paper I reflect on what seems to be a yawning gulf between the potential contribution of the social sciences and the typically restricted models and concepts of social change embedded in contemporary environmental policy in the UK, and in other countries too. As well as making a strong case for going beyond what I refer to as the dominant paradigm of ‘ABC’—attitude, behaviour, and choice—I discuss the attractions of this model, the blind spots it creates, and the forms of governance it sustains. This exercise provides some insight into why so much relevant social theory remains so marginalised, and helps identify opportunities for making better use of existing intellectual resources.
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