Most studies on the links between secrecy and creativity have focused on individual sources of creativity and the impact of organizational management on creative initiatives. However, because of their very focus on individual practices of concealment and personal creative capacities, they have paid scant attention to collective interactions occurring around secrets. In this paper, we illuminate some mechanisms through which the creative work achieved in secret by scientists is enhanced by the exceptional character of their situation within the company. Coping with these exceptional circumstances leads the group to increase commitment, cohesion and efficiency. We theorize creativity as a result of the multiplication of social interactions among individuals and the social consequences of working and cooperating in secret. We show that secrecy can help rather than be detrimental to organizations when it is analysed as a social fabric of interactions around work and common feelings triggered by the risks of working in secret.

Durkheim’s contributions to organization studies have so far been decidedly marginal, and largely concentrated on culture. In this paper, we draw upon his theory of anomie and solidarity to show how a Durkheimian view of contemporary organizations and work has special relevance today for debates about how workers, particularly middle managers, can reshuffle a capacity to resist neoliberal efforts to profoundly disrupt their working conditions, in particular their autonomy to define what is a job well done. We show how Durkheim’s insights can account for the unexpected rekindling of forms of social solidarity in highly competitive and individualistic organizational settings, through dissident efforts that convey a renewal of a certain work ethos severed by neoliberal managerial policies and practices. Recent studies on resistance confirm Durkheim’s view that forms of collective activity, resembling supposedly ‘old’ mechanisms of former days, continue to exist and develop in contemporary societies and organizations, in response to pressure to put people in situations of inter-individual competition that disrupts social relationships.

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Intersectoral cooperation is increasingly perceived as important to regional renewal. Yet, studies of local cooperation generally show that few ties exist among actors from diff erent sectors. However, we know little about the mechanisms behind this lack, which exists despite eff orts by policy makers and, sometimes, despite the desires of upper-level managers within fi rms. I attempt to examine mechanisms that might explain this lack of intersectoral partnerships. To this end, I will use a study of the cluster at Plateau de Saclay (in the Paris suburbs), which was founded in response to the French government's Pôle de compétitivité policy. The paper shows that, in order to understand these mechanisms, it is necessary to examine both local arrangements and employees' work within fi rms. The former explains dynamics of inclusion and exclusion, while the latter sheds light on the way fi rm strategy is constructed. Local arrangements have made it diffi cult to build intersectoral partnerships. In some cases policy does succeed in making fi rms from diff erent sectors cooperate, but these partnerships are diffi cult to maintain-a problem that results from negotiations inside large fi rms with confl icting economic goals and a lack of experience in measuring knowledge benefi ts.