The profitability of small businesses in the French construction industry depends partly on their social capital. However, social capital yields advantages as well as constraints. How and under what conditions do social networks improve a company's profit margins? From a socio-technical perspective and strategic analysis, we defend the idea that return on social capital is conditioned by the nature of the tasks performed and by the interdependencies among firms. Comparing about 160 businesses from four various crafts, we show that loose networks profit relatively specialized businesses working independently on construction sites, while cohesive networks benefit those businesses that are most affected by socio-technical uncertainties.Profits, network analysis, SMEs, strategic analysis, socio-technical systems,
Anatomie d’une escroquerie : Confiance et réseaux sociaux. Comment les réseaux sociaux favorisent-ils la confiance dans le cas des escroqueries ? L’affaire Santa est un « cas stratégique » de par son ampleur et sa durée. Ce cas d’escroquerie présente de fortes spécificités, dans la mesure où il concerne essentiellement des militaires expatriés outre-mer. Deux officiers ont démarché ces militaires pour leur proposer de soi-disant placements financiers à haut rendement. Je m’intéresse plus précisément aux leviers utilisés par ces démarcheurs, c’est-à-dire aux relations communes dont ils se recommandaient, et à la nature du lien entre ces leviers et les cibles démarchées en fonction du statut des cibles (sous-officiers, officiers ou civils). Les analyses portent sur une enquête par questionnaire auprès de 117 victimes de l’escroquerie.
Policy-planning organizations have undergone significant development in France over the last two decades. Interconnecting the economic, political and intellectual elites, their study merits particular attention. This paper examines the active involvement of the business community in these organizations to highlight its role in the policy-planning process. Focusing on the top 100 corporations and the top 40 policy organizations, it analyses the structure of their interlocking directorates. The cohesion of the policy-planning network significantly relies on the brokering role of a few business leaders and economists. The network discloses a core-periphery structure and a left–right polarization. The results shed light on the relative convergence among the main policy organizations and the relegation of less consensual organizations to the network periphery.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.