A century after the publication of Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the "Spirit" of Capitalism, a major new work examines network-based organization, employee autonomy and post-Fordist horizontal work structures.

The New Spirit of Capitalism

This paper gives a critical review of the four main research lines in network analysis. Authors begin with the discussion of an informal aspect of the networks - the role of the social ties in job search, mobilization of collective action and information transferring. After that the authors turn to the analysis of the more developed and formal direction of the network analysis, devoted to the networks and power. The next step is the consideration of the de-evolution of the big vertically centralized integrated firm and its division in complicated relation networks. Finally the paper deals with production networks where the authors underline the importance of space decentralized joined production in the development of new production processes and commercialization of new products. The paper focuses on the studies that demonstrated the main role of the networks in economic life and those studies that complement to each other.

Networks and Economic life

The paper analyses the concept of the smart city in critical perspective, focusing on the power/knowledge implications for the contemporary city. On the one hand, smart city policies support new wa...

Smartmentality: The Smart City as Disciplinary Strategy

(2002). Cool Projects, Boring Institutions: Temporary Collaboration in Social Context. Regional Studies: Vol. 36, No. 3, pp. 205-214.

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Cool Projects, Boring Institutions: Temporary Collaboration in Social Context

The aim of this research is to understand how the transformation of the communication technoscape allows for the development of particular patterns in the construction of social bonds. It provides evidence for the development of a ‘connected’ management of relationships, in which the (physically) absent party gains presence through the multiplication of mediated communication gestures on both sides, up to the point where copresent interactions and mediated distant exchanges seem woven into a single, seamless web. After reviewing some of the current social-science research, I rely on empirical studies of the uses of the home telephone, the mobile phone, and mobile text messaging in France to discuss how this particular repertoire of ‘connected’ relationships has gradually crystallized as these technologies have become widespread and as each additional communication resource has been made available to users. I also describe how such a ‘connected’ mode coexists with a previous way of managing ‘mediated’ rela...

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François Caron

Papers

Le nouvel esprit du capitalisme

Histoire de l'exploitation d'un grand réseau : la Compagnie du chemin de fer du Nord, 1846-1937

Histoire des chemins de fer en France

Histoire économique de la France, XIXe-XXe siècles

Le résistible déclin des sociétés industrielles