Accueil > English Supplement > Volume 47, Supplement 1

Volume 47, Supplement 1

  • Napster users between community and clientele : The formation and regulation of a sociotechnical group - J.-S. Beuscart

    Jean-Samuel Beuscart
    Ecole Normale Superieure de Cachan, Groupe d’Analyse des Politiques Publiques, 61, avenue du President Wilson, 94235 Cachan cedex, France
    Available online 26 October 2005 on ScienceDirect
    doi:10.1016/j.soctra.2005.08.003
    Abstract
    Napster, a peer-to-peer setup for exchanging music files, was exemplary of an open sociotechnical system. Two major, contradictory explanations of this innovation are examined. The first presents Napster as a self-regulated community with a new type of exchanges based on cooperation and gift-giving. The second analyzes it as a means of (...)

  • Handling relational stress and distance with the public : From the service to the helping relationship - J.-M. Weller

    Jean-Marc Weller
    Laboratoire Techniques, Territoires et Sociétés (Latts), École Nationale des Ponts et chaussées, 6-8, avenue Blaise Pascal, Cité Descartes, 77455 Marne-la-Vallée cedex 2, France
    Available online 24 December 2005 on ScienceDirect
    doi:10.1016/j.soctra.2005.01.005
    Abstract
    What kinds of tensions arise in jobs involving human contacts ? And what forms of stress are associated with them ? To answer these questions, the work performed by the activists who receive the public in a major French AIDS organization has been studied. Attention is focused not only on the difficulties (...)

  • A brief history of ‘customers,’ or the gradual standardization of markets and organizations - F. Cochoy

    Franck Cochoy
    Centre d’Etude et de Recherche Techniques, Organisations et Pouvoirs (CERTOP-UMR CNRS 5044) Université de Toulouse II 5, allées Antonio-Machado 31058 Toulouse Cedex, France
    Available online 25 October 2005 on ScienceDirect
    doi:10.1016/j.soctra.2005.08.001
    Abstract
    This article focuses on the history of the ‘actor-customer’ and his/her place in the functioning of organizations and markets. Big business first ‘invented’ the customer in order to better control a global marketplace where fluctuation was too strong ; lawmakers then created a rights-endowed consumer to protect (...)

  • Production, convention and power : Constructing the sound of an Early Music orchestra - P. François

    Pierre François
    CNRS, Centre de socilologie des organisations (CSO-FNSP/CNRS), 19, rue d’Amelie, 75007 Paris, France
    Available online 24 October 2005 on ScienceDirect
    doi:10.1016/j.soctra.2005.08.002
    Abstract
    By explaining how an Early Music orchestra produces its sound, we can review Howard Becker’s concept of a convention. An orchestra’s sound depends on principles incorporated in things (musical instruments, scores) and bodies (musicians’ techniques). A common set of principles about interpreting a piece of music — principles acquired well before any rehearsal — do not suffice for (...)

  • ‘Intermediation’ in used goods markets : Transactions, confidence, and social interaction - P. Chantelat, B. Vignal

    Pascal Chantelat, Bénédicte Vignal
    Centre de recherche et d’innovation sur le sport, UFR-STAPS, université Claude-Bernard Lyon I, 27–29, boulevard du 1-novembre 1918, 69 622 Villeurbanne cedex, France
    Available online 24 October 2005 on ScienceDirect
    doi:10.1016/j.soctra.2005.09.001
    Abstract
    An economic sociology approach grounded in an empirical study of second-hand sporting goods stores is used to examine ‘intermediation’ in used goods markets and its impact on confidence-building in market relations. Neo-institutional economic interpretation is contrasted with interpretation that uses a (...)