The Reproduction of Corporate Groups as Stable Socioeconomic Entities

Résumé 0

The article presents the results of a quantitative analysis of French corporate groups spanning the years 1991 to 1999. In the first section, an attempt is made to show that corporate groups constitute new social entities characterized by dense, multiple exchanges among the companies they comprise. The different types of resources circulating within groups are described. The second section shows that despite crystallization of this kind of social entity, corporate groups remain highly malleable, which is what allows them to endure over the long term. By renewing members of the collectives they manage, corporate groups are able to keep a continuous watch on market trends. The article thus concurs with important studies in economic sociology showing that these groups are able to manage the fundamental problem of “the paradox of embeddedness”: they are neither excessively nor insufficiently embedded, but rather immobilized in a cohesive, stable collective configuration; they have attained the “happy medium”, and this in turn explains to a large degree their domination of the contemporary French economy.