This research intends to study the response of different organizations to the Covid-19 pandemic, comparing the period from March to May 2020 with the period beginning in October 2020. It will focus on three sets of organizations: 1) Government and central administrations, 2) regional and local institutions, 3) the (socio-)health sector. The interviews conducted will be organized around three thematic entries that will help us to better understand the relationships between the different actors and organizations: 1) protection and prevention measures (masks, lock-down, curfew, isolation and physical distancing) ; 2) the organization of tests and screening (availability and choice of tests, contact cases, applications); 3) the management of patients and populations at risk (in hospital, at home, respiratory equipment, treatments, transportation). This research aims to uncover and analyse the capacities of these organisations to transform themselves or not in a period of uncertainty, by favoring an approach centered on collective action (to analyse the forms of cooperation or conflict that arise during crisis management) and a cognitive approach (which looks at the way in which actors make sense of the crisis and legitimize their actions). By comparing two periods, we will seek to see whether the capacities for cooperation differ according to whether the situation is marked by a high degree of uncertainty, urgency and extraordinary functioning; or, on the contrary, a better knowledge of the risks, less time pressure and a return to ordinary functioning. The goal will be to produce, in addition to fundamental knowledge about organizations in crisis situations, an analysis shared with the actors involved in the management of the crisis in these different organizations, with a view to collective learning.

To tackle the spread of the Covid-19 epidemic, governments have imposed new and unprecedented rules of social life, which have disrupted everyday practices and may have profound effects on different segments of the population. We will assess the social effects of the epidemic and confinement in France drawing on a unique empirical design based on: (1) longitudinal tracking (including ex-ante/ex-post measurements), (2) an original mixed-method approach and (3) a wide range of socioeconomic, socio-psychological and socio-political indicators. Using a social inequality lens, the project addresses two main research questions: At the micro-level, how do different social groups (such as gender, age, social class, household type, etc.) react to the epidemic and confinement? Is everybody equally able to cope socially, psychologically, and economically with such changes? At the macro-level, to what extent will the current crisis reconfigure social inequality in French society? And overall, what is the impact of these (albeit temporary) new rules of social life on social cohesion? The quantitative component of the project leverages pre-existing data collected before the social distancing measures were introduced. These data are provided by the ELIPSS longitudinal survey, which has been running periodically since 2012 on a representative sample of the French population. The project will take advantage of this panel by running five new ad hoc surveys (four in April and May 2020, and one in Autumn 2020, when the lockdown will be presumably over), thus covering the subsequent stages of the Covid-19 crisis. The panel will track changes in social practices, sociability, household arrangements, life plans, mental health conditions, and socio-political attitudes. This unique empirical design will allow us to record systematically the impact of the epidemic and confinement on behaviors and attitudes over time. The qualitative component will complement panel data by digging deeper into the social mechanisms and meaning-making of people coping with Covid-19, as well as track newer processes that emerge as the pandemic evolves. It will collect personal diaries, monitor online discussion groups, and conduct in-depth personal interviews particularly with less privileged and less IT-prone sectors of the French population.

The institutionalization of programs that signal corporate virtue, usually placed under the heading of “Corporate social responsibility”, is a central feature of the contemporary mutations of capitalism. While most studies focus on CSR discourse and devices, this project offers an innovative take on « responsible capitalism », by placing the lens on its managers, their work activities and their professional milieus. Through its focus on CSR professionals, the ProVirCap project pursues a triple theoretical ambition: 1/ to shed light on the reconfiguration of the borders between the market, the state, and civil society; 2/ to understand the transformations of professionalism in global companies; 3/ and to examine the ways in which gender shapes the virtuous face of capitalism. Carried out by a team of nine researchers renowned for their expertise on various management fields associated with CSR, the project will benefit from the cross-fertilization of several analytical perspectives: sociology of work, professions and organizations, economic sociology, political science, management studies, as well as gender studies. The research design combines qualitative (in-depth interviews, observations) and quantitative methods (CV scraping, questionnaire survey), and relies on a double comparison: between management fields associated with CSR (sustainable development, responsible investment, diversity and work quality, human rights, corporate giving, ethics) and between national cases (France, USA, Spain). The close dialogue with an international, interdisciplinary expert committee will anchor the project in a transnational field of research on responsible capitalism. The dissemination of the results among professionals of the sector, beyond academic circles, will help promote social sciences in a field that is particularly receptive to exchanges with academia, and contribute to the reflection around the transformation of capitalism – an issue that, against the background of the Covid-19 crisis, appears ever more vital for contemporary societies.