The REGARDS ([FRENCH] for "Research in Economics Management AgroResources Sustainability & Health") laboratory is a research unit which focuses on the formation of collective preferences, generally poorly understood in economic theory or management sciences, beyond the hypothesis of a sum of individual preferences. Partly, this question arises from theories of the formation of collective heritages contributing to the infrastructure of organizations or markets.
Such reflection is necessary:
- in management sciences, to the understanding of phenomena such as consumer resistance, the social and societal consequences of consumption, alternative or emerging consumption, CSR, organizational strategies or original forms of entrepreneurship,
- in economics, to the understanding of the development of objectives, public policies and collective assets dedicated to sustainable development or social protection.
Our research is organized into four thematic axes, supported by researchers in economics and management (including two sociologists working on these themes) as well as professionals or associated economic actors who have interests in more than one of these axes depending on the projects.
- In the "cultural goods, consumption and society" axis: (1) the conceptualization in terms of the economy of taste allows a rise in generality of work on luxury goods and champagne as cultural goods carried by strategies collective assets; (2) conventionalist approaches, but also the theories of framing and the normative and cultural construction of markets contribute to an understanding of situations and behavioral innovations that are alternatives to firm strategies – resistance, deviance, skepticism, boycotts, ethical criticism, consumption alternative, consumer subcultures, collaborative economy. The axis contributed to the creation and animation of the ALCOR network.
- In the "sustainable development and agro-resources" axis, our work focuses on the study of collective choices in the bioeconomy, and the transition to the use of renewable resources from chemistry and processes for sustainable development; they are carried out in cooperation with life sciences units from INRA or social sciences (IRSTEA), as well as agricultural organizations or industrial companies, in particular in the BIOCA project (2016-2019).
- In the “economic philosophy and theory” axis, the rereading of the old institutionalism of Commons, Veblen, Schmoller or Polanyi, and the works in economic theory bearing on the formation of collective intentions and norms, involve a double challenge: (1 ) Conceptualize the formation of collective intentions and preferences, in terms of game theory, based on the role of focal points and salience phenomena in the formation of rules and norms. (2) Based on a critique of the representations of institutions reducing them to behaviors that actors are encouraged to adopt, revisiting the tools of economic intervention (e.g. markets for rights to pollute) from a meso-economic perspective . This axis contributes to the animation of the philosophy-economics network.
- In the "health, social protection, social economy" axis, we have set ourselves the objective of theorizing the confrontation of professional practices and organizations with modes of regulation by the market or the quasi-market, in a context of the introduction of telemedicine and NTIC. In addition, the development of an “industrial” Social and Solidarity Economy chair makes it possible to study new organizational forms or collective entrepreneurship. The Social and Solidarity Economy Chair supported by REGARDS aims to support work in any SHS discipline on the SSE.
Keywords: economics, management, bioeconomy, sustainable development and agroresources, cultural goods, consumption, society, sustainable consumption, economics and management of health, social protection, institutionalism, economic philosophy, economic theory, history of economic thought.