52

This study concerns collective social capital, and more specifically, the operating process of engagement networks. We liken the action of these networks to rites of passage. These rites allow a business executive to move from one value framework to another, under the effect of ritualized actions (recurring, symbolic, temporalized, and spatialized actions). This comparison makes it possible to draw on a proven corpus in anthropology and management. The case study of the “Réseau Entreprendre” underlines the importance of the “separation phase” at the beginning of the operating process and shows the emergence of community belonging of the subjects in the “preliminary phase.” At odds with certain management studies, our study also shows that the preliminary subject is not here in an ambiguous situation in between two moral standards and that its reflexivity remains individual, with no impact on the rules and practices of the network. From a methodological point of view, the study suggests replacing the notion of proximity with that of spatiality. Finally, it establishes managerial recommendations regarding the collective supervision of individual transformations.