Le nouvel esprit du capitalisme

Abstract: 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.

Abstract: 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.

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

Abstract: 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...

Abstract: The contribution of the field of science and technology studies (STS) to mainstream sociology has so far been slim because of a misunderstanding about what it means to provide a social explanation of a piece of science or of an artifact. The type of explanation possible for religion, art or popular culture no longer works in the case of hard science or technology. This does not mean that science and technology escapes sociological explanation, but that a deep redistribution of what is a social explanation is in order. Once this misunderstanding has been clarified, it becomes interesting to measure up the challenge raised by STS to the usual epistemologies social sciences believed necessary for their undertakings. The social sciences imitate the natural sciences in a way that render them unable to profit from the type of objectivity found in the natural sciences. It is argued that by following the STS lead, social sciences may start to imitate the natural sciences in a very different fashion. Once the meanings "social" and "science" are reconfigured, the definition of what a "social science" is and what it can do in the political arena is considered. Again it is not by imitating the philosophers of science's ideas of what is a natural science that sociology can be made politically relevant.