Structure fonctionnelle et frontière des entreprises

The question of the boundaries of firms (externalization, network firm, hollow firm, etc.) is crucial today in the analysis of business organizations. Firms' functional structure, in particular, is increasingly transcending their internal space. This article presents an analysis of this phenomenon, based on the COI-ICT 2006 survey. The authors evaluate and describe the relationship between the firm and its outside functional partner?: is it a contractual relationship with a service provider in a network, a division of work within a group, exclusive delegation or shared responsibility? They identify the importance of the group phenomenon in the decoupling between functional organization and firm, pointing out that the weight of groups has increased massively over the past two decades. Whereas until now this phenomenon has essentially been analysed from a perspective of diversication/re-centring of products-activities, or else from a fiscal point of view, the results presented here reveal a third logic based on the functional specialization of subsidiaries.