Un/doing calculation: on knowledge practices of risk management

Kalthoff, Herbert

doi:10.1080/1600910x.2011.549337

Cited by 13 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Building on the findings of Kalthoff (2011), who primarily attributes strategies of 'undoing calculations' to discursive manoeuvres, we demonstrate that such discourse has to be inscribed in technologies, or materialities more generally, to undo calculations.…”

Section: The Visual Power Of Risk Management Inscriptions and Their Dmentioning

confidence: 79%

“…Hall and Fernando (2016) show that the layout and structure of visual templates for risk assessment can change the focus of risk management to solely complying with codified procedures. Kalthoff (2005Kalthoff ( , 2011 shows that companies are constituted anew through devices of risk calculation. These findings add to the broader debate on the visual power of technologies for framing the visual performable space of practice (Busco & Quattrone, 2015;Justesen & Mouritsen, 2009;Quattrone, 2009).…”

Section: Framework Technologies and Risk Constructionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This article thus represents one of the few performativity studies to describe the efforts over time associated with actual-ising and re-actualising an (economic) framework. It contributes to the current debate on risk management frameworks and technologies (Hall & Fernando, 2016;Jordan et al, 2013Jordan et al, , 2016Kalthoff, 2005Kalthoff, , 2011Miller et al, 2008;Power, 2009;Vinnari & Skaerbaek, 2014) by revealing the long-term complex dynamics of these for the work of translating uncertainties into risks.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The performativity of risk management frameworks and technologies: The translation of uncertainties into pure and impure risks

Themsen

Skærbæk

2018

Accounting, Organizations and Society

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This article examines the long-term dynamics among a best-practice risk management framework, risk management technologies and the translation of uncertainties into risks by using a longitudinal case study of a large mega-project. We show that the framework and technologies through the visual power of inscriptions and the purifying work of risk consultants as experts establish the boundaries of the forms of uncertainties that are accepted and included as risks. We term the accepted and included risks 'pure risks' and the risks excluded after disagreement 'impure risks'. We also show that the construction of impure risks challenges the predictions of the framework causing a false sense of security for the project objectives, and that the continuous readjustment of technologies, in particular, is necessary to ensure the long-term realisation of these predictions. Finally, this article contributes to the literature on performativity by showing how technologies serve as buffers to shield failing economic frameworks against criticism.

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Section: The Visual Power Of Risk Management Inscriptions and Their Dmentioning

confidence: 79%

Section: Framework Technologies and Risk Constructionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The performativity of risk management frameworks and technologies: The translation of uncertainties into pure and impure risks

Themsen

Skærbæk

2018

Accounting, Organizations and Society

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“…This includes those studies that have explored the way in which people, including experts, assess probabilities according to a range of conditions and norms (Kahneman ), or how the naming of something as a risk is an inevitably political process (Douglas and Wildavsky ; Tierney ; Van Zwanenberg and Millstone ). Relatedly, a number of studies have pointed out that the performance of risk calculation itself is both far from straightforward – risk is for instance seen as following its own organisational routines (Power , ; Kalthoff , ) – and a specific form of elite expertise subject to potential challenge by lay persons (McGoun ; Short ; Wynne ).…”

Section: Producing Riskmentioning

confidence: 99%

From preparedness to risk: from the singular risk of nuclear war to the plurality of all hazards

Deville

Guggenheim

2017

British Journal of Sociology

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Debates on risk have largely assumed risk to be the outcome of calculative practices. There is a related assumption that risk objects come only in one form, and that the reason not everything can be transformed into a risk is because of the difficulties in calculating and creating universal quantitative comparisons. In this article, building on recent studies of preparedness that have broadened understandings of risk, we provide an analysis of how preparedness measures might themselves produce risk, in particular through risk's durable instantiation, or what we call 'concretization'. Our empirical focus is on how government agencies in two countries shifted their attention from the risk of nuclear attack during the Cold War to an all hazards approach to preparedness. Comparing the mid- to late-twentieth century histories of the UK and Switzerland, we show that both countries shifted from focusing from a single risk to plural risks. This shift cannot be explained by a change in prevailing calculative practices, or by the fact that the risks changed historically. Instead, it is driven by historically specific changes in how risks are produced and reproduced in relation to how materializations of risk operate over time.

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“…Herbert Kalthoff (2011) invents the concept of "undoing calculation" for this operation, which he describes as a temporally delimited shift of attention away from calculation. Herbert Kalthoff (2011) invents the concept of "undoing calculation" for this operation, which he describes as a temporally delimited shift of attention away from calculation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Consistent Forecasting vs. Anchoring of Market Stories: Two Cultures of Modeling and Model Use in a Bank

Wansleben¹

2014

Sci Context

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ArgumentIt seems theoretically convenient to construe knowledge practices in financial markets and organizations as "applied economics." Alternatively or additionally, one might argue that practitioners draw on economic knowledge in order to systematically orient their actions towards profit-maximization; models, then, are understood as devices that make calculative rationality possible. However, empirical studies do not entirely confirm these theoretical positions: Practitioners' actual calculations are often not "framed" by models; organizations and institutions influence the choice and adoption of models; and different professional groups in financial markets have diverging attitudes towards model calculations. In order to account for this diversity, this article proposes the concept of cultures of economic and financial expertise; the concept focuses on the patterns of knowledge practices and knowledge-related self-definitions of groups within financial organizations and markets; it also facilitates an analysis of the relations between and, more specifically, the hierarchies among different practices and identities. The article then goes on to explore the process of foreign exchange forecasting in a particular bank. The description immediately reveals that two groups are involved in this process: economists and analysts. These groups maintain quite different practices and self-descriptions in relation to models: While the economists in the bank use the models as organizational resources for consistent forecasting procedures and observe data with the help of simple model structures, analysts approach model forecasts from the perspective of critics: They see limits in the variablecentered, as opposed to a "thematic" approach and they disregard a model's imposed temporality. Nevertheless, analysts use model forecasts as anchors for developing their own "paths" and stories about possible future expectation changes in the markets. The specific division of labor between economists and analysts, and specifically the dominant role of analysts in the forecasting process, fit into a larger picture: The rise of institutional investors in the foreign exchange markets and their demand for genuine market knowledge for speculative investment projects has contributed to the rise and dominance of analysts' culture. of expertise include accounting (Power 2010), risk management (Kalthoff 2005;

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Un/doing calculation: on knowledge practices of risk management

Cited by 13 publications

References 32 publications

The performativity of risk management frameworks and technologies: The translation of uncertainties into pure and impure risks

The performativity of risk management frameworks and technologies: The translation of uncertainties into pure and impure risks

From preparedness to risk: from the singular risk of nuclear war to the plurality of all hazards

Consistent Forecasting vs. Anchoring of Market Stories: Two Cultures of Modeling and Model Use in a Bank

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