Frédéric C. Godart

Mobilizing Identities : Uncertainty and Control in Strategy

Some see the development and execution of strategy as necessarily driving outcomes of organizational activity, thereby ignoring counter-actions, stochastic disturbances and unintended consequences. We suggest an alternative to these deterministic assumptions based on a broader view of social organization and illustrated through case example. Strategy does imply some mobilization of network resources according to desired ends and projected events. Yet strategic action is also generated by some perturbation of a status quo ante and a decoupling from this slate of affairs. The central theoretical premise of the article is that any identity, as either an individual or grouping, emerges from persistent efforts to seek control in immediate and uncertain surroundings. Identities appear and evolve according to positions and movements among networks of social ties, which imply access to different sets of meanings. So distinct identities are triggered by disjunctions in social interactions and disruptions in the social or physical environment. And further levels of social organization are by-products. Anticipating deviations from established routine and coping with uncertain environments is the basis for strategic action. Strategies can be viewed as atlempts to secure a stable and lasting footing in an operating environment while simultaneously configuring organizational identities in line it strategic ends. Management in business, the military and fashion design supply case evidence.

Network-Domains in Combat and Fashion Organizations

This article adapts and extends the ‘network-domain’ concept from Harrison White’s Identity and Control in order to consider how social ties are interwoven with domains of meaning in organizations. Our interpretation claims that modalities of behaviour in organizations are consequences of identities’ persistent movements among positions in network-domains as well as organizational efforts to manage these movements. This idea is outlined through discussion of two organizational antipodes: combat operations and fashion design. While combat operations require internal group cohesion and constrained individuality, the fashion industry is based on the distinctiveness of designs and the display of personal tastes. Despite clear differences, however, we trace how attempts at managing movements among network-domains are central to identities in both contexts. This effort builds on the generally accepted understanding of identities in organizations as labile and socially constituted and thereby contributes to bridging micro/macro and structural/cultural gaps in organizational theorizing.

Empires, Federated Arrangements, and Kingdoms: Using Political Models of Governance to Understand Firms’ Creative Performance

Firms can be conceived as political entities in which various stakeholders struggle against each other to reach goals. From this standpoint, the organizational structure of a firm, together with the power relations and strategies deployed by stakeholders, constitute a governance regime. It is understood that the economic performance of a firm is impacted by the type of governance regime which is at play among its different stakeholders, but little is known on the effects of governance regimes on organizational creative performance. Adopting a center/periphery perspective, we look at business groups, a well-known type of business firm in creative settings. A salient question is thus to know how firms affiliated to various types of business groups perform vis-a-vis unaffiliated firms, and what are the underlying political processes. We define three different regimes of governance—empires, federated arrangements, and kingdoms—each characterized by specific regulation and integration features. Regulation refers to the type of rule (from the center to the periphery), to the autonomy of peripheral entities, and to the regime’s level of flexibility; integration captures the extent to which projects of the center and the periphery are consonant as well as the local elites’ type of mobility. We devise empirical tests for a realm of the creative economy by employing organizational and network analysis of 293 fashion houses over seven seasons. Overall we find that, although both empires and federated arrangements perform better than kingdoms, federated arrangements perform best in creative contexts because they are hybrids of empires and kingdoms.

Trend Networks: Multidimensional Proximity and the Formation of Aesthetic Choices in the Creative Economy

Godart F. C. Trend networks: multidimensional proximity and the formation of aesthetic choices in the creative economy, Regional Studies. In sociology, a key challenge is to comprehend the formation of aesthetic choices in the highly uncertain settings of the creative industries. The multidimensional proximity perspective – which goes beyond the geographical – developed in economic geography can be used to complement sociological approaches to the formation of choices in creative contexts. The question is explored using a comprehensive large-scale longitudinal dataset of high-end fashion organizations and their selection of stylistic trends presented at biannual fashion shows. Using a social network analysis approach, proximity constructs (geographical, temporal, organizational and status-based) are used to explain the choice of trends conceptualized as temporary proximity.

How History, Culture, and Demography Drive Luxury Consumption in Russia

Together with the other BRICS countries — Brazil, India, China, and South Africa — Russia demonstrates a high potential for luxury consumption. With a total population of approximately 143 million people, a growth in gross domestic product (GDP) of 4.3 per cent in 2011, and 3.4 per cent in 2012 (The World Bank 2013), the Russian market has attracted the attention of the majority of Western luxury brands, who have established their presence in the major cities of the country by opening their own boutiques or selling their goods through major distributors.

Drivers of China’s Desire for Luxury and Consequences for Luxury Brands

Luxury plays a pivotal role in the traditional structure of Chinese society. In the Confucian tradition it is used to bind the different elements of the national community. For example, in a professional context, gift-giving is a way to honour one’s superiors, peers, or subordinates on special occasions. In a family context, it is a way to show gratitude to parents, relatives, or elders. As Tsai explains, to this day, luxury remains intertwined in a web of gifts and counter-gifts that ensures the perennity of social relations and structures (Tsai 2008).

Sector-Specific Regulation in European Electronic Communications - Meant to Disappear?

Purpose: This paper aims to question the disappearance of sector-specific regulation in European electronic communications markets. Design/methodology/approach: To show that sector-specific regulation will remain, five arguments are developed based on different disciplines: law, economics, political science and sociology. Findings: It is found that sector-specific regulation has already been in place for 15 years and there is no concrete indication that it will end soon. Competition law has intrinsic limitations, which, arguably, do not make it possible for authorities to resort only to that body of the law to ensure a smooth functioning of the electronic communications markets. The balance of power in the EU leads to sector-specific regulation being maintained in the years ahead as the ideal way for European institutions to intervene in electronic communications markets. The electronic communications market requires regulation going beyond competition law in order to ensure the realization of non-economic purposes. The implementation of sector-specific regulation might contribute to concentrating the electronic communications markets. Practical implications: Contrary to the claims of the European institutions that sector-specific regulation in the electronic communication markets will lose its relevance, this paper argues that it is likely to remain for the foreseeable future. Originality/value: The paper shows that deregulating a sector is not an easy task and that ex ante regulation is a key legal instrument for the proper functioning of a market.

Relational Language: The Example of Changes in Business Talk

How are you exhibiting that you are acting in a market, or that instead you are caught up in internal affairs of a big hierarchical firm? And what would be the tangible evidences of your being in a different sort of context altogether, a Silicon Alley of network mobilizations among aficionados in some novel technical line of business or design? These questions do not address issues of business operation, of management strategy and expediency, nor do they take on issues of control and identity that arise over time and have engendered this variety in business contexts. They address issues of language as a relational social formation in business contexts.

Semantic Networks and the Market Interface: Lessons from Luxury Watchmaking

Abstract The conception of markets as interfaces connecting semi-autonomous systems of producers and customers has led to an extensive use of social network analysis. So far, the network focus has been on connections among people, paying less attention to the crucial role played by connections between cultural elements (e.g., concepts, representations, ideas) in the way markets are formed and sustained. Such connections constitute “semantic networks” and are the focus of the present article. We attend to them by developing a network view of the cultural dimension of markets and apply it in an empirical setting where culture plays a crucial role – luxury watchmaking – to illustrate the impact of market semantic networks on a major outcome: price.

Turning Points and the Space of Possibles: A Relational Perspective on the Different Forms of Uncertainty

Identities, which can be defined as “any source of action, any entity to which observers can attribute meaning not explicable from biophysical regularities” (White, 2008, p. 2), seek to reduce the turmoil of social and biophysical life through control, which includes, but is not limited to, domination or coercion. Identities, which can be of any level, scale, or scope, are triggered by their ever-changing and uncertain environment (Corona and Godart, 2010). The search for control thus originates from a need for footing in a context of uncertainty that, following Knight (1921), we distinguish from risk: while risk can be dealt with through insurance mechanisms, uncertainty can never be fully insured against.