The firm is a hybrid object set at the crossroads of several disciplines such as Management Sciences, Economics, Sociology and Psychology. Although the firm has also become the object of a considerable amount of research, we are still lacking a solid base of knowledge on its regulation modes. The discovery that the firm is not reducible to the notion of an organization founded on power relations among actors but can be considered a space of socialization has enabled us to introduce frameworks of cultural regulation. Our analytical perspective views its productive context as emerging from a socio-historical fabric as well as the contingencies of external milieu. The autonomy of the firm can be understood from the perspective of the singularity of its developmental trajectory, never reducible to its formal structure or market contingencies. The Sociology of the Firm furthers our knowledge of social systems of production through an analysis of middle levels of regulation, that is, production establishments. This article proposes a general typology of the social modes of firm functioning, combining the social and administrative dimensions of organizations, development strategies, human resource and organizational politics as well as systems for cooperation between actors and cultural professionals.
Sociology of the Firm; power relations; spaces of socialization; social systems of production
