Accounting and the Birth of the Notion of Capitalism

The purpose of this paper is to cast a new light on the post-Sombartian debate. It contributes to some understanding of the birth of the concept of capitalism itself. The author argues that the history of how the concept of capitalism was invented is an example of the influence of accounting ideas on economic and sociological thinking.capitalism; accounting; Karl Marx; Werner Sombart

The role of Criticism in the Dynamics of Performance Evaluation Systems

Drawing on the concept of « trial », developed by French sociologists, this article analyzes the dynamics of employees’ performance evaluation systems, particularly those involving accounting performance measures. A case study is presented as an illustration of our proposal to consider these systems as one of the major trials in the business world, that is, social arrangements organizing the testing of people and resulting in ordering them, and further in consistent social goods allocation. This analysis emphasizes the role of criticism in the dynamics and evolution of performance evaluation systems and enables us to revisit concepts like controllability or objectivity which have been presented for decades as cornerstones of performance evaluation systems either in management control or in human resource management fields.Criticism; performance evaluation systems; fairness; objectivity; controllability; legitimacy; bonus

Searching for the accounting features of capitalism: an illustration with the economic transition process in China

In this paper, the authors show that capitalism and double-entry bookkeeping are not indissociably interconnected as Sombart argued in his book in 1916. Indeed, the double-entry bookkeeping accounting system was also adopted by anti-capitalist countries where a new economic system was set up. A study of how accounting has changed with the economic transition in China helps us identify those "accounting features" required for a capitalist economy that clearly differ from those needed for the planned and centralized economy.capitalism; communism; accounting; China; reform; transitional economy

The role of Social Reformers in the Adoption of new Management Practices: The case of Budgetary Control in France, 1930-1959

Historically, the development of budgetary control in French businesses took place within the ideological context of the debate on organisation of the economy following the economic and political crises of the 1930s and 1940s. Budgetary control, a management practice theorised as early as the 1920s in America, was seen by many actors as one of the practices that could provide a solution to the economic and social problems facing them. In other words, its increasingly widespread adoption was not only due to the search for ever-greater efficiency, but also to a clear ideological attraction. Better business management was not the only goal: more broadly, there was a desire to change society as a whole. This article is part of the research tradition of studying accounting in its social context. The history of accounting is examined in the light of the general political and economic history of the 20th century, associating accounting practices and the capitalists institutions of a given period and country. We stress an as yet largely unexplored aspect: the role played by the critique of capitalism and the social reformers’ proposals in changing business management methods.Budgetary control; capitalism; history; adoption of management innovations; social reformers

Social Finance and Impact Investing: Governing Welfare in the Era of Financialization

Social Finance and Impact Investing took off after the 2008 financial crisis, offering alternative financing solutions for social welfare. Presented as answers to the pressing problems of the 21st century (public sector fiscal constraints, overstrained welfare states, and a lack of investment opportunities in an era awash with investment-seeking capital), they propose to combine public and private funds in complex negotiated and cascade-like credit and subsidy structures. They aim at attracting private capital by advertising potential social and financial gains to private investors. This introductory article provides an overview of the Social Finance and social impact investment phenomenon. It discusses the scope of literature, and outlines the transformative trajectory of Social Finance in terms of financialization, public sector governance reform, and welfare state policies. Social Finance and Impact Investing are important research fields for the social sciences, as they are much more than mere "financial innovations." They transform how we govern and think of welfare and organize public sector funding. The articles assembled in this special issue provide the reader with insights into the making of a field and the establishment of new financial relations and circuits, judgement devices, and ranking schemes

The Dual Function of Judgment Devices: Why Does the Plurality of Market Classifications Matter?

This article aims to advance understanding of the dual function of judgment devices (Karpik 2010) in markets. First, these devices support the construction of markets and their segmentation into classes of products, each segment being associated with different procedures for judging the quality or value of goods. Second, they organize classifications and a ranking of the things traded in the same market segment. The fragmentation of markets, understood as the cohabitation of several types of judgment devices, each one associated with different configurations of actors and practices, can then be seen as a welcome source of diversity, preventing the standardizing effects that would result from over-similar judgment devices. This article studies the classification operations that accompany changes in the French market that provides funding for social-sector organizations through financial and banking channels. We observe the arrival on this market of impact investing, the name given since the end of the 2000s to a set of venture capitalism-inspired financing methods that originated in the USA and the UK. We study these classification operations at three levels: the boundary-building work needed to create the idea of a new financing market (the impact investing (II) market), the fragmentation of the existing market for financing social organizations into sub-spaces governed by different assessment and classification regimes, and the effect of these classifications on the organizations being judged

The three ages of financial quantification: a conventionalist approach to the financiers' metrology

This article presents a conventionalist interpretation of the financialization of the economy. We define three periods, each one associated with conventional calculation systems that may shape investment decisions. Each of these periods begins with the adoption by financial practitioners of a new “convention” to make investment decisions: the actuarial convention at the end of the 19th century, the mean-variance convention during the 1970s, and the market-consistent convention since the 1990s. These conventions are rooted in finance theory developments and are associated with different financing circuits for economic activity. When a new convention arises, it does not mean the disap-pearance of the old one, which can still be used by some practitioners for certain given matters, but it can also redefine some financial professions by fragmenting them according to the convention followed, and it can finally also give rise to new professions

Le rapport paradoxal de l'économie scientifique à la quantification des phénomènes économiques le cas de la "positive accounting theory"

Nous traitons dans cet article de la quantification économique Et de son utilisation par la recherche en économie, en embrassant ses différentes sources qu'elles soient comptables ou statistiques. Diverses interrogations nous ont guidés. La première est la méconnaissance qu'ont souvent les économistes des opérations de quantification de l'économie notamment comptables qui leur sont pourtant utiles dans leurs travaux empiriques. La seconde est l'accroissement historique de cette méconnaissance depuis les années 1950. La troisième est la multiplicité des façons d'envisager la quantification de l économie (la quantification en générale au sein du champ économique (des sciences sociales en général). Notre hypothèse est ici qu'un déploiement précis des modes de relation aux quantifications qu'entretiennent les chercheurs permet d'apporter des réponses aux trois interrogations mentionnées.économie scientifique; quantification des phénomènes économiques

Le rôle des réformateurs sociaux dans la diffusion de nouvelles pratiques de gestion : le cas du contrôle budgétaire en France 1930-1960.

Le développement du contrôle budgétaire dans les entreprises en France s'est fait dans le contexte idéologique des réflexions sur l'organisation économique suscitées par les crises économique et politique des années 1930 et 1940. Le contrôle budgétaire est apparu alors à de nombreux acteurs comme étant l'une des pratiques susceptibles de répondre aux problèmes économiques et sociaux auxquels ils faisaient face. C'est dire que sa diffusion ne fut pas seulement portée par la volonté de rechercher une efficience toujours accrue mais aussi par une évidente séduction idéologique. Nous replaçons ici le développement du contrôle budgétaire dans l'histoire politique et économique du XXème siècle et mettons en relation les pratiques comptables avec les institutions du capitalisme d'une époque et d'un pays donné. Nous insistons sur un aspect jusqu'ici peu étudié : le rôle de la critique du capitalisme et des propositions des réformateurs sociaux dans la transformation des modes de gestion des entreprises.Historically, the development of budgetary control in French businesses took place within the ideological context of the debate on organisation of the economy following the economic and political crises of the 1930s and 1940s. Budgetary control was seen by many actors as one of the practices that could provide a solution to the economic and social problems facing them. In other words, its increasingly widespread adoption was not only due to the search for ever-greater efficiency, but also to a clear ideological attraction. The development of budgetary control is examined in the light of the general political and economic history of the 20th century, associating accounting practices and the capitalist institutions of a given period and country. We stress an as yet largely unexplored aspect: the role played by the critique of capitalism and the social reformers' proposals in changing business management methods.Social reformers; Adoption of management innovations; History; Capitalism; Budgetary control; Réformateurs sociaux; Histoire; Capitalisme; Contrôle budgétaire; Pratiques de gestion; Innovations;