Économie sociale et solidaire et responsabilité sociale des entreprises : quelle légitimation par le territoire ?

The article examines the tension between the rise of corporate social responsibility (CSR) as an instrument of legitimisation for companies in their territories and the historically more rooted and cooperative practices of the social and solidarity economy (SSE), which are struggling to gain recognition for their legitimacy. Our hypothesis is that the potential tensions between these two registers of institutionalisation of the economy do not systematically lead to postures of confrontation or avoidance, but rather to three types of interaction. While some parts of the SSE see CSR as an additional threat of isomorphism or alignment with the capitalist frame of reference, others adapt and hybridise their standards and practices to the extension of the CSR standard. A third response consists in developing alternative practices for SSE leading to a "CSR from below", valuing the territorial anchorage of SSE through territorial cooperation practices. This diversity in the appropriation of CSR by the SSE shows the capacity of the SSE to seize this new form of evaluation to adapt it to its model. However, this diversity remains partly masked by the dominant discourse on CSR. Paradoxically, CSR contributes to revealing the relevance of the SSE model while at the same time contributing to its invisibility. To this end, we mobilise approaches in terms of institutional logics, the sociology of political work, public problems and territorial dynamics. The proposal will be based on the academic and institutional literature available in the French context and on the empirical surveys conducted by the authors on the territorial dynamics of the SSE in Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur and in Nouvelle Aquitaine.