Les modèles d'entreprise : application au secteur laitier

Résumé En Fr

Models offirm : a tool to study and classify dairy industry. The study of industrial sectors has always been very present in the economic literature. But several different approaches were used, some concerning especially the sectoral dynamics and others dealing with the study of firm, considered as an organizational entity or as an informational nexus. Works that would try to build a bridge between the différent approaches are rare. We propose a synthetic représentation of the firm within three dimensions : the technical combination of production factors, the organizational structure, the relations with the market. By this way, an industrial sector can be considered as the aggregation of several groups composed by firms that are close to a stylised form, that we named a "firm model". We consider the case of the French dairy industry as an empirical field to test this analytical tool. Thus, each firm of this sector is analyzed and classified with the help of this scheme, by using individual statistkal data and some data analysis, classification and analysis of variance methods. Nine «firm models» appear in the dairy industry case. Their characteristics as well as their relative weight in the sector are quite different. We also test their relative performances by using various criteria and point oui the existence of an hierarchy between these models : some are very efficient, while the existence of some others is quite surprising in regard to their relative performances. By the same time, we reveal that some complementarities exist between the firms of the different models, concerning for instance the functional distribution of jobs, this is suggested explicit or implicit relations between firms : competition is not the only way, and coordination also appears between firms. That last point can be useful to understand the sectoral architecture. A sector is not only a competition space for firms, but also a cooperation one. The existence of some firms as well as their strategics or performances cannot be understood if these kinds of relation between firms are not pointed out.

On propose une représentation synthétique de la firme suivant trois dimensions : la combinaison technique des facteurs de production, la structure organisationnelle, les relations au marché. Chaque entreprise présente au sein du secteur étudié est alors caractérisée et classée suivant ce mode de représentation à partir d'un traitement statistique utilisant des données individuelles. Un secteur industriel peut alors être considéré comme étant composé de plusieurs sous-groupes homogènes d'entreprises qui sont proches d'un type idéal baptisé «modèle d'entreprise». Neuf modèles d'entreprise apparaissent ainsi dans le cas du secteur laitier. Ces modèles présentent des caractéristiques très variées et leur analyse fournit des éléments d'interprétation des rapports inter-entreprises au sein du secteur.