Calculability as Politics in the Construction of Markets: The Case of Socially Responsible Investment in France

Abstract

This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link AcknowledgementsWe thank our Organization Studies acting editor on this paper, Professor David Courpasson, for his guidance and help through the review process, as well as two anonymous reviewers for their valuable insights. Earlier drafts of this paper benefitted of useful comments from Liliana Doganova, Peter Karnøe and the other attendees of the panel on 'Calculability and Performativity' at the conference of the Society for the Social Studies of Sciences (SSS) held in 2013 (San Diego), as well as from two presentations of our research at Principle for Responsible Investing (PRI) academic conference in 2013 (Paris) and 2010 (Copenhagen). We also acknowledged the useful comments from Dianela Laurel-Fois and the other participants of the sub-theme 51 at the 2015 EGOS Conference (Athens) as well as helpful informal discussions with Peter Fleming and Emilio Marti. 2 Authors' biographiesStéphanie Giamporcaro is Associate Professor and Research Director at the University of Cape Town Graduate School Of Business. Her theoretical roots are in sociology of markets and consumption, social studies of finance, economic sociology and French pragmatic sociology. She has published a book on political consumption and various peer reviewed academic articles. Her research focuses particularly on how sustainable and responsible investment (SRI) and impact investing practices are currently be implemented in the developed and emerging economies. Prior to that, she was the head of SRI research for the French think-tank Novethic, a subsidiary of the French Public Investment Group Caisse des Dépots.Jean-Pascal Gond is Professor of Corporate Social Responsibility at Cass Business School, City University London (UK). His research mobilizes organization theory and economic sociology to investigate corporate social responsibility (CSR). His research in economic sociology is concerned with the influence of theory on managerial practice (performativity), the governance of self-regulation, and the interplay of society's commodification and markets' socialization. AbstractThis paper examines some of the processes by which power constitutes calculability and, in so doing, shapes the construction of markets. We combine insights from performativity studies about calculability with Lukes' 'radical view of power' to investigate how multiple facets of power are mobilized to influence the creation and activities of calculative agencies in the process of market construction. An in-depth longitudinal study of the French socially responsible investment market shows how organizations acting as calculative agencies become sites of power through calculability. We identify how power is exercised over, through and against these calculative agencies by a variety of actors in order to build their position in the socially responsible investment market. Our results complement the broader question of the 'government...

Improving accountability for farm animal welfare: the performative role of a benchmark device

“…Devices have agency -they act or they make others act (Muniesa et al, 2007). Calculative devices articulate actions and are viewed as a necessary component in the construction of markets (Callon, 1998;Callon and Muniesa, 2005;Giamporcaro and Gond, 2016). A calculative device may ensure that values can be assigned (Callon, 1998) and comparisons drawn (Rooney and Dumay, 2016), thus facilitating encounters between agents with unequal calculating ability (Callon and Muniesa, 2005).…”

Materializing Power to Recover Corporate Social Responsibility

“…This infrastructure provides a material setting that redefines the content and expectations related to CSR and encompasses a variety of devices, such as the reporting standard provided by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) (Etzion & Ferraro, 2010); accountability norms, such as AA 8000 (Gilbert, Rasche & Waddock, 2011); principles, such as the 'Equator principles', that have substantively influenced investors' practices (see, e.g. O'Sullivan & O'Dwyer, 2015); and calculative tools, such as 'CSR ratings', which are provided by external agencies (Giamporcaro & Gond, 2016) or intraorganizational systems of management control that are focused on social and environmental issues (Gond, Grubnic, Herzig & Moon, 2012). This unprecedented scale of CSR materialization within and across corporations offers a new opportunity to investigate both how power works through materiality and more specifically how power is exercised through materialized forms of CSR.…”

“…Future research could investigate this sociomaterial conceptualization in contrast and/or in relation to alternative approaches to power derived from the post-colonial or Foucauldian tradition (Banerjee, 2000;Vallentin & Murillo, 2012), Bourdieu's analysis (Aaken, Splitter & Seild, 2013) or aligned with the radical view proposed by Lukes (2005) (Giamporcaro & Gond, 2016;Gond et al, 2016). Beyond the context of CSR, the conceptualization of power we proposed can be mobilized to account for the process by which forms of power are constituted and performed through other types of sociomaterial agencements.…”

Opaque transparency: How material affordances shape intermediary work

“…The calculative mechanisms that have enabled FracFocus's diffusion are obviously inseparable from the surrounding political context (Giamporcaro & Gond 2016). The oil and gas industry in the US and Canada wields immense power, as evinced by the pattern of pro-industry regulation of the past 150 years (Wiseman 2009;Cahoy et al 2013;Gond et al 2016).…”

“…In contrast, few researchers have examined how an intermediary's indirect actionsits influence from a distance (Latour 1987)can shape these dynamics. Such actions often manifest through symbolic systems like standards, certifications, and other instantiations of calculability that transmit information to the rest of the constituents (Callon 1998;Etzion & Ferraro 2010;Giamporcaro & Gond 2016;Ména et al 2018). For example, an organic food label is the visible manifestation of an intermediary's efforts to promote sustainable agriculture (Lee 2009;Lee et al 2017).…”