Material Signals: A Historical Sociology of High-Frequency Trading

MacKenzie, Donald

doi:10.1086/697318

Cited by 101 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Throughout the story of OFEX, the market's material structures are constantly under negotiation, designed and redesigned by actors according to competing understandings of good practice. Market design (MacKenzie, 2009(MacKenzie, , 2018 is therefore a consequence of moral orders in the marketplace. But it is also a source of moral order: the study shows how material structures, densely patterned with social codes, organize conduct within the markets.…”

Section: Discussion: Sociomateriality and Organizational Moralitymentioning

confidence: 99%

How ‘matter matters’ for morality: The case of a stock exchange

Roscoe

2020

Human Relations

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While matter clearly matters to organization theory, its absence from the study of organizational ethics is striking. Despite the obdurate materiality of the workplace, critical scholarship on organizations and morality sees ethics as interpersonal, subjective and embodied. Organizations, meanwhile, are characterized by moral anomie and dysfunction. This article advances our understanding of the material entanglements of organizational morality, drawing on the science and technology studies inflected study of markets to show how moral orders arise in dialectic between the social and the material. It argues that moral orders are entangled in the material infrastructures of organizations. Its empirical case is the founding and development of a small-company focused stock exchange, OFEX, launched in London in 1995, accessed through elite interviews and documentary work. The article seeks to develop our understanding of morality in critical organization studies, to further defend the Weberian notion of ‘ethics of office’ by emphasizing the sociomaterial dimension of organizational morality, and to contribute to an ongoing renaissance of the study of morality as a sociological phenomenon. There are implications for managers and engaged scholars alike.

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Section: Discussion: Sociomateriality and Organizational Moralitymentioning

confidence: 99%

How ‘matter matters’ for morality: The case of a stock exchange

Roscoe

2020

Human Relations

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“…Moreover, the hybrid theoretical approach employed within this paper, which draws upon work on institutional logics from the organizational institutionalist literature as well as actor-network-inflected work from the social studies of finance, addresses a recognized need within both of these literatures to understand the benefits and drawbacks of combining these perspectives (c.f. Thornton, Ocasio, and Lounsbury 2012, 141;MacKenzie 2017). In this respect, this paper highlights the importance of both meso-level institutional factors and micro-level material factors in shaping the development and adoption of novel calculative practices .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 85%

The Price of an Uncertain Promise: Fair Value Accounting and the Shaping of Bank Counterparty Risk Valuation Practices

Spears¹

2018

Preprint

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How did the adoption of fair value accounting by the FASB shape the financial modelling practices used by market practitioners? Drawing on documentary sources, ethnographic fieldwork, and 52 interviews with financial economists and market participants, this article addresses this question by tracing the development and adoption of the mathematical models and associated infrastructures that derivatives ‘dealer’ banks use to assign value to the counterparty risk embedded in the ‘over-the-counter’ derivatives contracts they trade. Rather than reflecting a pre-existing consensus on the part of financial market participants in favour of valuation practices drawn from financial economics, this article suggests that the switch to fair value actively shaped the financial modelling and risk management practices used by dealers to value and manage this risk. While a number of material and institutional factors shaped the adoption of these practices, the switch to fair value ultimately ‘tipped the balance’ in favor of a particular set of practices that were preferred by a minority of investment banks. In explaining the development and adoption of banks’ counterparty risk modelling practices, this paper develops a hybrid theoretical approach that combines organisational institutionalism’s focus on meso-level field dynamics and the social studies of finance’s focus on materiality.

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“…Through an in-depth and detailed analysis of high-frequency trading algorithms operating among buyers and sellers of shares, Donald Mackenzie [43] demonstrated that the very configuration of these algorithms are socially embedded. The procedures envisaged by the algorithms are contingent products of their interaction with people, organizations, machines, patterns of trading and a "result of conflicts with strong meso-level political economy impacts" (p.1677).…”

Section: Political Streammentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In understanding how digital ecosystems evolve, MacKenzie [43]offered an epistemological critique of the division between governance and algorithms. Because algorithms themselves are socially embedded, he recommends an integration of actornetwork theory and economic sociology that are sensitive "to conflict and to matters of political economy, structural advantage, the law, and government" (p.1678).…”

Section: Structural Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Digital Ecosystems as a Unit of Scientific Analysis. A Sociological Investigation

Bygstad

Dulsrud²

2020

Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences

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The growth of digital ecosystems such as Google, Apple and Uber has led to radical changes in economic activity, work and consumption. It has also challenged established economic, social and organization theory, which has clear limitations in understanding these phenomena. The discourses on these topics are conducted in various arenas, which are not linked, and conceptualise digital ecosystems differently. What kind of theoretical object is this? The purpose of this study is to present an institutional and comparative analysis of the research on platforms and digital ecosystems. We identify four research streams; political, economic, technological and individual. We analyse each stream regarding the key insights, and identify the most important knowledge sources. Then we assess the relevance of classical and modern sociology for understanding digital ecosystems.

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Material Signals: A Historical Sociology of High-Frequency Trading

Cited by 101 publications

References 44 publications

How ‘matter matters’ for morality: The case of a stock exchange

How ‘matter matters’ for morality: The case of a stock exchange

The Price of an Uncertain Promise: Fair Value Accounting and the Shaping of Bank Counterparty Risk Valuation Practices

Digital Ecosystems as a Unit of Scientific Analysis. A Sociological Investigation

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