Résumé (EN)

Several authors have demonstrated the importance of inter-organizational relationships for the development of biotechnology companies. Most of the works on this industrial sector analyze exclusively the contractual agreements of the companies. In this article, we propose to extend the study of Technology Transfer to the social relationships observed through advice exchange among the scientific entrepreneurs. We analyzed this exchange system as the result of the institutional affiliations and the relational investments that the actors make in the construction of their social status and the co-orientation of the learning process. Our results allow us to identify the norms of exchange and the solidarity and exclusion mechanisms that delimit the social boundaries in this field, in particular through the “private-public” institutional division. We suggest that this opposition is translated into a loss of efficiency for this sector.