Abstract

Organization researchers pay increasing attention to interfirm cooperation as an hybrid form of organisation between market and hierarchy and propose some specific mechanisms of cooperation (contract and trust) which may supplement the price mechanism and administrative fiat. Based on a micro-sociological approach of a just-in-time production system in the French car industry, the paper tries to explain how this hybrid form of organization goes beyond the "bureaucratic phenomenon". In this way, the author compare intra and interfirm relations as far as the components supplying activity is concerned (interfirm cooperation versus hierarchy effect), and supliers close to and far from assembly lines (local effect). In both cases, interfirm contract is more efficient than hierarchy to "adjust-in-time" the production system.