The missing link: Bringing institutions back into the debate on economic globalisation

In der Auseinandersetzung mit der Globalisierung von Wirtschaftsprozessen kann sich die sozialwissenschaftliche Institutionentheorie nicht mehr auf die Untersuchung nationaler Konfigurationen beschränken, sondern sollte der transnationalen Rekombination institutioneller Arrangements mehr Aufmerksamkeit schenken. Für die Untersuchung solcher Prozesse sind veränderte analytische Werkzeuge erforderlich. Die Autorinnen dieses Beitrags schlagen eine Synthese von National Business Systems- und Varieties of Capitalism- Ansätzen mit kulturalistischen und phänomenologischen Varianten der Institutionentheorie vor. Es werden drei Aspekte der institutionellen Analyse vertieft, die zu einem besseren Verständnis des Verhältnisses von Globalisierung und Institutionen beitragen: Institutionalisierung als Prozeß, Rekombination als Mechanismus der Institutionengenese und des Institutionenwandels und eine Mehrebenenanalyse des Zusammenspiels von institutionellen Veränderungen auf nationaler und transnationaler Ebene. Die vorgeschlagene Synthese verschiedener institutionalistischer Ansätze bietet einerseits Ansatzpunkte für die Untersuchung der Rolle nationaler Akteure in der Genese und Entwicklung transnationaler Institutionen. Andererseits trägt sie zu einem besseren Verständnis der Rekombination von Elementen verschiedener institutioneller Arrangements sowie der Herausbildung neuer Institutionen auf transnationaler Ebene bei. Diese Entwicklungen im transnationalen Raum wirken wiederum auf Institutionen in nationalen Sozial- und Wirtschaftsräumen ein. Die Autorinnen des vorliegenden Beitrages argumentieren, daß die Abfolge und Kombination einer Reihe gradueller und zunächst geringfügiger Veränderungen über einen längeren Zeitraum hinweg zu einem signifikanten Wandel von gesellschaftlichen Institutionen führen können. -- Faced with ongoing debates on globalisation, societal institutionalism in its traditional form is showing its limits. In this paper, we suggest that a serious sociologically grounded and institutional contribution to the ongoing debate on global governance calls for a shift in focus away from the preoccupation with national configurations and towards an attempt at understanding transnational recombinations. The investigation of transnational recombination calls for new analytical tools. Here we argue that the solution may come from an hybridisation of NBS and VOC approaches with other variants of the institutionalist argument in particular those we label cultural or phenomenological. We elaborate on three aspects of institutional analysis that we identify as key to getting a better understanding of the relationship between globalisation and institutions. Firstly, we propose an interpretation of institutionalisation as a process and not a state of things. Secondly, we reinterpret institutional genesis and institutional change as revealing recombination. Thirdly, we argue for a more systematic analysis of the interplay of such processes of recombination across different levels of analysis, particularly the national and the transnational. With a conceptual framework so reformulated, it is possible to take in the transnational reality in its full complexity. We show, on the one hand, how the NBS and VOC perspectives are an interesting starting base to look at the structuration and stabilisation of the transnational reality. On the other hand, we gain new insights in the ways in which institution building and recombination at the transnational level become reflected often progressively and somewhat incrementally at the national business system level. Our proposition is that the succession and combination, over a long period of time, of a series of incremental and sometimes minor transformations could lead in the end to consequential and significant change.

Entreprises et gouvernance en France : perspectives historiques et évolutions récentes

La France serait-elle par nature et de manière essentielle une société bloquée ? Une mise en perspective historique donne une tout autre image du paysage économique et social français. En particulier, nous soulignons dans cet article les transformations qui modifient en profondeur la firme française et sa gouvernance. L'histoire du changement que nous retraçons s'inscrit en partie dans un mouvement de fond qui dépasse largement nos frontières et qu'il est facile de résumer en un mot — mondialisation. Les évolutions de la firme française et les transformations de ses logiques de gouvernance peuvent en partie se comprendre comme une réaction à des pressions externes puissantes qui poussent notre économie ainsi que celle de nombreux autres pays dans une direction bien particulière. Et pourtant, même si le changement semble se faire dans une direction particulière, une analyse plus fine montre que les transformations sont en fait des adaptations, des traductions, des hybridations et qu'elles se font en négociation constante avec les logiques institutionnelles préexistantes. Les avancées de la mondialisation et du néolibéralisme sont réelles ; mais ces avancées sont contextualisées, imbriquées dans des logiques locales qui limitent leur portée et leur impact.Does France have a society that is blocked by nature and essence? A historical perspective yields a completely different view of the country’s social and economic landscape. In particular, attention is drawn to the deep transformations of French firms and of their governance. The history of this change partly fits into a broader trend that, reaching well beyond borders, can be easily summed up through a single word — “globalization”. Changes in French firms and in their “logics of governance” can partly be seen as a reaction to powerful outside pressures that are pushing the economies of France and many other countries in a particular direction. Still, as we probe further, we realize that these changes are, in fact, adaptations, translations and hybridizations that involve ongoing negotiations with already existing institutional frames and logics. The advance of globalization and neoliberalism is quite real; but it interplays with and is embedded in local settings and logics that limit its scope and impact

From Local Legislation to Global Structuring Frame:The Story of Antitrust

If we take a long-range view of competition regimes, we can document in the 20th century a case of major transformation. There has been a double evolution – away from cooperation and cartelization and towards competition on the one hand, from nationally bounded regimes to a globally interconnected regulatory sphere on the other. The antitrust tradition that emerged in the USA at the turn of the 20th century has gained significant and widespread influence after 1945, imposing itself in many parts of the world. The objective of this article is to retrace the process by which antitrust has gone from being a local legal rule to a nearly global structuring frame. We trace the fate of a local set of ideas turning into international politics and globally accepted principles. We also show that those global principles are subject to and interact with local politics – through the process of diffusion but also in their implementation.Si on prend une vue à long terme des régimes de compétition, on peut documenter au cours du 20ème siècle un cas de transformation exceptionnelle. L’évolution a été double - de la coopération et la cartelisation vers la compétition, d’une part, de régimes définis nationalement vers un cadre de régulation global d’autre part. La tradition de l’antitrust qui émerge aux Etats-Unis au tournant du 20ème siècle s’est répandue depuis 1945 et s’est progressivement imposée dans de nombreuses régions du monde. Le but de cet article est de reconstituer le processus par lequel l’antitrust s’est transformé d’une règle locale en un cadre de structuration presque global. Nous suivons le destin d’un ensemble d’idées à l’origine locales qui se transforment en politiques internationales et en principes globalement acceptés. Nous montrons aussi que ces principes globaux interagissent étroitement avec les politiques locales, à travers le processus de diffusion comme au moment de leur implémentation.Si adoptamos una perspectiva amplia de los regimenes de competencia, podemos documentar un caso de gran transformación durante el siglo XX. Hemos visto una doble evolución – pasando de la cooperación y la cartelización hacia la competencia, por un lado, de los regimenes constreñidos a escala nacional, a una esfera reguladora interrelacionada a escala mundial por otro lado. La tradición antitrust que salió de los Estados Unidos al principio del siglo XX obtuvo gran influencia después de 1945, y fue adoptada en muchas regiones del mundo. Este art’culo trata de volver sobre el proceso por lo cual la legislación antitrust se ha transformado de una ley local en un marco de estructuración global. Examinamos el destino de una colección local de ideas que se transforman en la pol’tica internacional y en principios que son aceptados a escala mundial. Mostramos también que esos principios globales están sujetos a la pol’tica local, y que se relacionan con ella – por el proceso de diffusión y también por su implementación

La liberté d'entreprendre, un défi institutionnel ?

Daniel Plainview tient entre ses mains une pierre noircie ; celle qui pourrait bien sceller son destin et annoncer le succès et la fortune. Un geste maladroit et il se retrouve prisonnier, la jambe cassée, tout seul au fond du trou d'exploration qu'il a lui-même creusé. La rage, la volonté, la puissance du désir pour un futur à construire le galvanisent. Il réussit à s'extraire du puits et rampe jusqu'à la ville la plus proche pour faire expertiser l'échantillon qui décidera de son avenir. On devine qu'il ira voir ensuite un médecin. De cette aventure, il gardera jusqu'à la fin de sa vie une claudication forte, comme un prix à payer par avance pour sa fortune future. [Premier paragraphe

Exporting the American Model:Historical Roots of Globalization

The late 1990s was a period of Panglossian optimism. The world, we were told, was getting smaller, increasingly seamless and it all had to do with ‘globalization’ (Ohmae 1994, Held et al. 1999, Giddens 1999, Friedman1999). From this perspective, the movement seemed to lead inexorably to the worldwide convergence of economic, technological and institutional conditions, fostering in the process a homogenization of organizational recipes and national systems of economic organization. This process was seen to be significantly accelerated, if not driven, by the internet revolution

How Capitalism Lost its Soul:From Protestant Ethics to Robber Barons

A serious discussion of capitalism and its development cannot avoid the confrontation, at one moment or another, with ethical issues. Historically, there have been quite a number of different positions in the debate – giving us a sense that the confrontation is, indeed, a complex one. When it comes to the connection between ethics and capitalism, we can differentiate between at least four different ideal typical perspectives. [First paragraph

Marketization: From Intellectual Agenda to Global Policy Making

A distinctive feature of the contemporary period of globalization is a powerful trend towards marketization in many regions of the world. The term “marketization” refers both to market ideologies and market-oriented reforms. A market ideology reflects the belief that markets are of superior efficiency for the allocation of goods and resources. In its most extreme form, this belief is associated with the commodification of nearly all spheres of human life. Market-oriented reforms are those policies fostering the emergence and development of markets and weakening, in parallel, alternative institutional arrangements. During the last decades of the twentieth century, the dominant market-oriented reform mix has included macroeconomic stabilization, privatization, deregulation, liberalization of foreign trade and liberalization of international capital flows (Simmons et al. 2003). Since the early 1980s, market ideology and market-oriented policies have spread fast and wide around the globe. Markets, the argument goes, are better at allocating resources and producing wealth than bureaucracies, cartels or governments. Furthermore, the global diffusion of marketization has had an impact well beyond the traditional boundaries of the economy. Marketization implies a redefinition of economic rules of the game but also a transformed perspective on states, regulation and their role. Marketization is questioning all forms of protective boundaries and barriers and having an impact, as a consequence, on social and also cultural and legal policies (Collectif Dalloz 2004; Thornton 2004). [First lines

The Coevolution of New Organizational Forms in the Fashion Industry: A Historical and Comparative Study of France, Italy, and the United States

In many industries, the contemporary context of acute environmental dislocation shows the limits of traditional organizational recipes. In direct response to environmental challenges, companies are experimenting with new organizational solutions. While flexibility, or the capacity to redefine organizational form to follow changing purposes, is undeniably a common trend, these experiments otherwise differ greatly. Diversity is such, in fact, that it is difficult to clearly identify and define a unique organizational paradigm for the future. To explore the connection between environmental dislocation and organizational transformations, we adopt a historical and comparative perspective. Our empirical base of evidence is the luxury fashion industry in three countries, France, Italy, and the United States. For many years, this industry was defined by stable environmental conditions, and a craft model of organization remained dominant. We show that, over a more recent period, increasing environmental turbulence has brought about a redefinition of the rules of the game. A common response has been for organizations to move towards greater flexibility or modularity and to experiment with network forms. However, we also show that the paths or trajectories leading to organizational flexibility have varied significantly across countries, reflecting historical legacies and institutional constraints. We identify in fact three different network forms in that industry, which represent national ideal types-the "umbrella holding" company in France, the "flexible embedded network" in Italy, and the "virtual organization" in the United States. We argue that the process of change in the luxury fashion industry has been one of coevolution, where environmental transformation and organizational change have fed upon each other through time. Pioneer firms in the luxury fashion industry originally devised organizational solutions within the bounds set by nationally defined constraints and opportunities. Becoming institutionalized, these early solutions in turn shaped the environment for individual organizations and organizational populations, creating new sets of opportunities and constraints. In a pathdependent manner, different models of organization and national competitiveness thus emerged. In conclusion, we are brought to question the likelihood of full and stable convergence towards a unique organizational form or paradigm. There appears to be, in each national context, a process of construction of new organizational solutions that starts from local foundations. Embedded as they are in powerful historical and institutional legacies, organizational differences are there to stay, we believe, beyond the period of transition and acute environmental dislocation. [First paragraph

Overcoming path dependency: path generation in open systems

Studies on societal path dependencies tend to focus on mechanisms that Anchor and stabilize national trajectories while paying less attention to transnational interactions and multilevel governance. This paper explores processes of path transformation in societies that are presumed to have the characteristics of open systems. Two pairs of casestudies are presented and compared. The first illustrates institutional change through collision, when a national path meets with another. The second describes the emergence of transnational institutional paths and the impact of that process on national institutions and their (potential) transformation. The results indicate that path transformation often stems from a gradual succession and combination of incremental steps and junctures – change is gradual but consequential. They also point to increasing co‐evolutionary interaction between national path transformation and transnational path creation. This implies a need for analytical tools that are adapted to the analysis of multi‐level, nested processes of institutionalization and de‐institutionalization. The paper suggests that the concept of path generation allows for a better specification of the conditions for change in existing societal paths and for the emergence of new paths in the case of open systems than the concept of path dependency

Managerial Competencies for Organizational Flexibility:The Luxury Goods Industry between Tradition and Postmodernism

Luxury goods are selling well and the growth of the industry has barely been slowed down by the Asian crisis (Les Echos, 04-30-1998, 09-25-1998; Le Figaro, 04-06-1998; Financial Times, 04-24-1999). As in many other growth markets, though, good results are coming together with a fair amount of turmoil. Many changes are redefining environmental conditions and new challenges are creating significant turbulence for players in the industry at a global level (Ecole de Paris, 1998; Woman’s Wear Daily, 02-10-1998; Libération, 03-06/07-1999). Our question in this paper is whether, in the face of such global trends, luxury goods companies have reacted and attempted to adapt. We are interested by changes and evolutions with an impact on organizational structures but also by the potential redefinition of managerial roles and competencies. [First paragraph