Contenu du sommaire : Articuler stratégies organisationnelles et territoriales : analyses managériales

The purpose of the article is the analysis of territorial factors that contribute to attracting foreign investment of Multinational Firms (MNFs). Investment operations accounted belong to both the creation or takeover of a subsidiary in a foreign territory as its extension. We consider that the choice of location for foreign investment is less the result of a rational optimization process by the MNF than an approach in which the territorial context of the investment and its perception by the internal actors of the MNF, including the subsidiary general manager, play a key role. We rely on the study of the investment operations of foreign MNFs in Brittany (France). We mobilize first a survey of 75 subsidiary general managers and carry 14 semi-structured interviews. The research results show a foreign investment policy guided by the specific resources on the territory where the logic of location is doubled by a logical anchor. They also account for strong influences of MNF internal actors, including the subsidiary general manager, with prior knowledge of the local context.

This article analyses the birth of a business ecosystem through the study of the NFC (Near Field Communication) technology appropriation by the mobile phone industry. In 2002, NXP and Sony jointly developed NFC technology. This technology enables exchanges between two communicating objects (e.g. a telephone, computer, television, interactive terminal, electronic terminal). However, the birth of the ecosystem offering NFC mobile services – i.e. the structuring of a group of organizations around this new offer – has been difficult. Conflicting individual goals coupled with several technological alternatives for performing the services have led to an instability of the leadership and a lack of consensus. The objective of this article is therefore to understand the role of a geographic area in fostering the emergence of an international and global business ecosystem. Our strategy of research has been a single and process-oriented case study. We collected primary data (mainly through semi-directive interviews, research notes, and passive observations) and secondary data to analyze the different forms of proximity, either geographical or organized, that govern the relations among the actors. More precisely, we focused on its local variations in Normandy. Thanks to the analysis, we determined three successive phases symbolized by a different mobilization of the geographical proximity and the organized proximity. Finally, this article highlights that the particular coordination of actions within a local geographic area can leverage the emergence of a global ecosystem. Both geographical proximity and organized proximity enable niche players to 1) be part of the ecosystem and 2) to focus and coordinate their actions on a shared vision specific to the geographic area.

This article examines the influence of the type of area on the development of innovation network. For this research, the tourism industry appears to be a relevant field of study because it is changing. Thus, all these changes compel the different tourism stakeholders to adapt and develop innovations. Moreover, the structure of the activity in the mountain tourism sector is not the same in a high-altitude resort or a middle mountain territory. Little attention has been paid to the networking patterns of different stakeholders in a territory. That is why we are interested in the influence of the type of territory on the development of innovation network. We adopted a qualitative study based on a multiple case study approach. We have chosen nine innovation networks as case studies. In order to assess the influence of the territory, the nine innovation networks are located in two types of resorts: four are located in medium-altitude resorts (Saint Bernard du Touvet, Saint Pierre de Chartreuse, Savoy Grand Revard, and Semnoz), and the other five have been developed within two high-altitude resorts (Tignes and Avoriaz). This research makes a significant contribution to both the spatial development and innovation management literature: indeed, our results show that according to the nature of the territory, innovation networks differ in terms of partners, geographical proximity, and regulation mode. However, the type of territory does not seem to influence the architecture of the network since all the networks studied have a hub firm company in charge of orchestrating the partners.

Industrial ecology urges companies to reduce their impact on the natural environment by drawing lessons from Nature itself. Based on the cyclic functioning of natural ecosystems, it contributes to implement a circular economy where the waste of one company becomes a valuable resource for another one. If industrial ecology brings a new perspective to waste, they are not a classical merchandise easy to trade. Its implementation challenges the representations and beliefs within companies and requires collaboratives mindsets. Through the qualitative case study of the Dunkerquois industrial ecosystem, we highlight how the Écopal association has contributed to implement industrial ecology among its members. Since its creation in 2001, it has helped companies to rethink and reorganize their industrial flows and processes through the gradual implementation of waste transactions. Thus, the shared-waste collections have produced “quick wins” enabling Écopal to increase its members' embeddedness in the process and to go further and deeper towards industrial ecology. However, such practices remain complicated to implement and sustain, and Écopal has experienced a great deal of difficulties, whether they are economic, regulatory, technical, or behavioral. Through these results, we contribute to bring a management science perspective to industrial ecology. Our case study shows how a third-party organization can act as a facilitator and a matchmaker orchestrating eco-industrial cooperation within an industrial ecosystem. However, even though it absorbs some transaction costs related to the identification and the establishment of waste transactions, it also causes coordination costs related to the orchestration of the relationships between the ecosystem members. Finally, this research shows that a third party can play a crucial part in changing the perspective of local stakeholders regarding waste as well as activating geographical and organized proximities between them, and  take a part in the transition towards a circular economy.

According to the World Tourism Organization, France is still the first tourist destination in the world with nearly 83 million visitors in 2016, however in terms of revenue it ranks only fourth behind the United States (first with 205 billion euros for 77 million visitors). Why is there such a gap between the number of visitors and the revenue generated by tourist activity in France? Several factors have been identified, such as resistance to change by certain corporations in the face of globalization, disintermediation and the Internet, the atomization of players, and a deficit in the marketing of the French destination on foreign issuing markets. But in general, it would seem that one of the main explanatory reasons for this situation is mainly due to the quality of the receptive offer in France. In fact, French tourism activity suffers from an underused receptive offer that can be greatly improved in terms of stakeholder coordination, responsiveness, flexibility, diversity and availability in general. This observation is mainly verified in the receptive offer on local destinations other than Paris, the French Riviera and some big cities. Faced with this critical situation, and in order to better articulate a territorial and organizational strategy with an adapted managerial dimension, this article proposes, with reference to the actors in charge of reception, a new organizational skill of assembler through dynamic management of the local tourist offer. To do this, it relies on the concept of dynamic assembly of logistics chains (Pellegrin-Romeggio, 2011). The general idea is to show the interest of understanding the tourism sector with a more dynamic and transversal vision rather than static and compartmentalized.

This contribution is part of an attempt to clarify the roles of public policy measures in bringing innovation and territorial development closer together. The cross-fertilization of a literature in management sciences and in regional science enables to highlight the role of intermediary stakeholders in the relationship between business strategies and those of territories. Based on an extensive literature in collaborative innovation intermediation, intermediary practices are examined in order to better understand how their use potentially develops geographic and/or organized proximity between economic stakeholders and hereby foster collaborative dynamics of innovation in a given territory. We rely on an empirical qualitative study of two public policy measures, four competitiveness clusters and six French Techs on different French territories, which enable us to identify actual practices of territorial intermediation. Our findings show that most of the territorial intermediation practices that were emphasized by the respondents can be related to the intermediary functions highlighted in the literature on innovation in management sciences. However, some additional functions specific to territorial intermediation are also pinpointed. From a more theoretical point of view, the study confronts the notion of innovation intermediation applied to the territory and brings out more broadly the potential contributions of an understanding of the territorial dynamics, more specifically when it comes to the construction of relations of proximity between territorial actors. Our study contributes to this understanding and hereby supports public stakeholders in their decision-making when it comes to investing in collaborative innovation dynamics on their territory