Interior designers: division of labor and competition.

Summary This thesis is devoted to the study of the division of labor and competition in the project management market, focusing on the particular case of interior architects. The first part deals with the birth and development of this professional group. It shows that the relationship between interior designers, architects and decorators has changed since the 1950s, moving from non-exclusive periods of ignorance or collaboration, to periods of conflict. The question of the autonomization of the interior design group on the Anglo-Saxon model of the "established professions" will only appear at a precise moment in this history as a competitive strategy in an older division of labor, and then as a means, for a part of the group, to reduce the uncertainty in the market for design and construction services. The second part of the thesis focuses on the means of identifying the content and the contours of the group, by successively analyzing the categories that make it possible to grasp it and the content of the tasks that its members assume. The third part focuses on this service market, analyzing the cooperation networks between interior architects and construction companies, the nature of the service relationship that this market institutes, and the shape of the careers of these professionals.