The principal objective of this article is to offer an approach to the notion of hub firms using concepts from the Economy of Proximity. It shows that the specificity of the hub firm lies in its ability to combine technical and relational skills, allowing early involvement with, for example, an aircraft manufacturer in order to take part in the definition and the production of systems or sub-assemblies. A particular characteristic of the hub firm is the way it develops linked organisational and geographical proximities which this article analyses in detail. In particular, such firms demonstrate the capacity to establish different types of organisational proximity according to whether they are coordinating with the architect-integrator or with subcontractors , proximities sometimes reinforced by a temporary geographical proximity. When hub firms coordinate with industrial or scientific partners which help them conceive and master particular sets of skills, they often forge links based on geographical proximity in order to develop the innovations necessary for the acquisition and master of these in-house skills. These theoretical arguments are then tested in the cases of the hub firms Thales Aerospace and Liebherr Aerospace in the Toulouse aeronautical complex.

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[eng] Owing to their importance and the technologies they use, owing to their strategies of external growth, the groups have played a determining part upon local industrial organizations. The settlement of a method of alternative local development aiming at re-structuring and consolidating "Small and Mean Industries" (PMI in french) on a financial and technological plan, is being studied at the moment. In that view, the public sector, enlarged by the 1982 nationalizations must enable a better local insertion of the established groups. The case of the aerospace branch in the "Midi-Pyrenees" region, especially in re-orientation the yields of sub-contractors, permits to advance a few new solutions. [fre] Par leur poids et les technologies qu'ils mettent en œuvre, par leurs stratégies de croissance externe, les groupes ont joué un rôle déterminant et, le plus souvent, déstructurant sur les organisations industrielles régionales. La mise en place d'un mode de développement régional alternatif, notamment destiné à restructurer et à consolider les PMI (Petites et Moyennes Industries) financièrement et technologiquement, est à l'ordre du jour. Dans cette perspective, le secteur public élargi par les nationalisations de 1982 doit permettre une meilleure insertion locale des établissements des groupes. Le cas de la branche aérospatiale dans Midi-Pyrénées, particulièrement à travers une réorientation des rapports de sous-traitance, permet d'avancer quelques éléments de solution.