Organizations are collectives that both guide individuals’ behaviors and explain how markets and societies evolve. I analyze the strategic, social, and institutional conditions that make organizations in general and firms in particular survive or disappear. Explaining the conditions of their success paves the way for a better understanding of why people make sense of socio-economic events and of how to define strategies with positive impacts.
In books and theoretical writings, I advance several research propositions that explain competitive advantage, superior reputation, or higher collective value creation. In applied studies with my coauthors, we test these ideas on entire populations of organizations over several years or even decades from various industries such as French manufacturing firms, the biotech sector, the European photovoltaic industry, movie producers, starred restaurants, venture capitalists, global arms producers or corporate law firms.
As a result of these investigations, I advocate for a reasoned study of organizations and their impact on markets (economics) and society (sociology) which I call « orgology », and reflect on the foundations of management.