STRATÉGIES POUR "JOINT VENTURES"

Élisabeth Campagnac LATTS-CERTES campagna@enpc.enpc.fr SUMMARY This theme paper responds to an initial methodological objective: to form a common body of perspectives on existing theories on the subject and to define a common problematic to guide our investigations in the field. The text which follows responds principally to the first point. The guiding idea is that the development of major civil engineering projects at the European level is being accompanied by a renewal of the terms of competition - it is becoming both more international, and more complex due to the size, technology and sophistication of the projects as well as the development of new conditions such as the private finance of public infrastructure. The development of joint ventures, in this context, leads to a redefinition of the strategies of firms - a double movement of rivalry and cooperation emerges in response to the new conditions of competition. In order to understand this double-movement, this paper proposes to le Groupe a common body based upon three sets of references: the competitive analysis of Michael Porter in order to understand the national and sectoral conditions of the elaboration of the value chain mobilised in international competition. the contirbution of international industrial economics, particularly with reference to the process of globalisation the institutional analysis, understood in the sense of the work of Fligstein, in order to understand the strategies of firms defined in terms of the institutional arena. The paper brings together these perspectives and presents the principal points of their theories.