June 2019
abstract
Gérer & Comprendre
Issue 136
Overlooked…
The long march of China’s new “environmental” technologies: State capitalism, “constructed” comparative advantages and the formation of an industry
By Édouard Lanckriet ,
agronomist, PhD in the economics of development, ÉHÉSS
and Joël Ruet ,
researcher, Centre d’Économie de Paris-Nord (UMR CNRS 7234), associate of the Centre de Recherche en Gestion i3-CRG (UMR 9217), École Polytechnique.
The stunning breakout of Chinese industries in environmental technology (wind and solar power) ensues from a long-term government strategy. Central authorities have turned the country’s world monopoly over rare earths from a natural advantage located upstream in the value chain into an “industrial advantage constructed” downstream (and based on technology). An analysis of segments of the value chain limited in time or space does not explain the upsurge in this new industrial technology. At the level of the national system of innovation, the structure of industry has been orchestrated using a fourfold strategy: scientific, industrial, economic and diplomatic.
Trial by fact
A social dialog or a soliloquy? Formalized collective bargaining in a small firm
By Marie-Rachel Jacob ,
Emlyon Business School,
and David Sanson ,
ENS Lyon / Emlyon Business School
The reform of the French Labor Code intends to extend collective bargaining to all firms, in particular small companies. The objective is twofold: make firms more competitive in the context of global competition and make social progress by associating wage-earners with the setting of working and employment conditions. The literature on collective bargaining presupposes a fundamental conflict between employers and wage-earners, and thus suggests an articulation between negotiation and conflict. In a small manufacturing firm, this articulation is studied both from the pragmatic viewpoint of how production is organized and from the antagonistic viewpoint of social relations between the dominant and dominated.
A learning model for an online configuration of luxury goods
By Élodie Jouny-Rivier and Éric Stevens ,
A model is proposed of the process of learning how to customize luxury goods on line. A study has validated the relevance of the theory of experiential learning for analyzing the customization of such products by using an online configurator. The experience resulting from this learning process must be considered to be a property of the product itself and should lead to improving knowledge about the product and its brand.
In quest of a theory
The digital divide in France seen in terms of “capabilities”: Learning to learn
By Julien Gradoz ,
École Normale Supérieure Paris-Saclay,
and Sandra Hoibian ,
CREDOC
Beyond the controversies surrounding it, the “digital divide” has long been used to refer to lags in the infrastructure, equipment or the uses of them by certain groups in the population. The scope of research on this topic is broadened by using the concept “digital capabilities”. In a constantly changing world, it is worthwhile trying to understand (apart from questions related to the equipment, devices or uses as such) the individual’s aptitude for adopting new practices and ceaseless innovations in the digital realm. Focus is thus shifted to individuals’ education and training in digital technology and on their opinions about their own skills and qualifications. Using unique data from CREDOC, a typology of users is proposed that mixes various dimensions (equipment, uses, self-perception of skills and aptitudes). With regard to digital inequality, it sheds light on the importance of the capacity for self-learning and on the possibility of reabsorbing the digital divide through schooling and initial training, especially if the latter stimulate individuals self-confidence in their potential and provides them with the keys for learning that will enable them, later on, to adopt new uses, devices and equipments (learning to learn). In addition, this typology offers us an updated, empirical view of the relations between forms of digital and social inequality.
Other times, other places
Innovations in bookkeeping and financial information about industrial groups: The French accountancy profession’s contribution from 1930 to the present
By Didier Bensadon ,
The articles published in the main French book- keeping journals between 1929 and 1938 have been analyzed with an eye on this profession’s lack of interest in the question of consolidation. That the profession showed little interest is this question can partly be set down to its lack of legitimacy and to the low standards of the journals. The profession’s interest and involvement in providing financial information about industrial groups grew once the National Accounting Council defined a set of consolidation rules in the mid-1960s. The profession contributed further to this process when, during the 1980s, laws on accountancy were passed and, again, more recently when the accounting profession adopted International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) on the consolidation of the accounts of listed companies.
Mosaics
The relevance and impetuousness of sociopsychoanalysis
On Jean-Luc Prades’ Du pouvoir sur nos actes: Sujets de l’acte pouvoir et sociopsychanalyse en mouvement (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2017).
By Gabriel Migheli
Futures of organizational psychoanalysis
On Gilles Arnaud, Pascal Fugier and Bénédicte Vidaillet’s Psychanalyse des organisations. Théories, cliniques, interventions (Paris: Erès, 2018).
By Xavier Leon