Archives quotidiennes :

The Financialized Enterprise: Alternative Perspectives of Convention Theory

Jürgen Kädtler (2025)

In Rainer Diaz-Bone & Guillemette de Larquier (eds.), Handbook of economics and sociology of conventions. Cham: Springer, Online first

Abstract. With respect to the enterprise as a subject of convention theory or economics and sociology of conventions (EC/SC), financialization stands for a somehow paradoxical history: At the beginning, one if not the main concern was on defending the plurality of logics of economic action and respective logics of coordination in companies against the unique optimization logic of mainstream economics’ agency theory. Financialization, together with the emergence of a “new spirit of capitalism”, stands for a reversal of perspectives, at least in an important stream of EC/SC’s research. In this perspective, the vision of the contractual enterprise seems to have become empirical reality by the implementation or the enforcement of financialized frameworks of valuation. On the other hand, there is another stream of research, drawing on financialization as one convention-based way of evaluation and coordination among others, with the financialized firm never being only financialized. The conclusion emphasizes the perduring relevance of initial concepts of EC/SC, which focus on the empirical analysis of coordination of action on the microlevel of enterprises and firms as fruitful as heuristics for corporate analysis, especially under the conditions of financialization.

Lien / Link