French craftsmanship : a literature review[Artesanía frances: una revisión de la literatura]

With almost 1.5 million companies, craft industry is one of the pillars of the French economy. Among craftsmen, two categories of companies coexist: the traditional craftsman, which represents most of the craft industry, and the entrepreneurial one, which represents a few percent of craft companies. To date, no synthesis of the management literature on craftsmanship has been carried out, and it seems important to take stock of what is known about these enterprises. We propose in this article a review of the literature on the French craft industry. The observation we make is astonishing: management research focuses on a minority of craftsmen, entrepreneurial ones, and very little research has been conducted on traditional ones. We highlight the factors in the literature that make a craftsman follow a more entrepreneurial path at a given time We conclude this article with recommendations for future research, particularly on the management difficulties of traditional craftsmen, which researchers mention, without ever having explained them.