Finance at Work

Valérie Boussard is Professor of Sociology and Head of the Department of Sociology at the Paris Nanterre University, France. Her works are focused on the managerialisation and financialisation of contemporary firms through the analysis of professional and occupational groups which take part in such dynamics.

Contents



List of Figures



List of Tables



Notes on Contributors



Foreword



Acknowledgements



Introduction: Financiers at work, financialisation on the march



Valérie Boussard



PART I The boundaries of finance: Exclusionary process, social closure and inner regulation



Introduction: Interrogating financialization as an analytic



Karen Ho



Chapter 1 Let’s make the company a bunch of figures: Professional representations in mergers and acquisitions firms



Valérie Boussard and Marie-Anne Dujarier



Chapter 2 Matching the market: Calibration and the working practices of quants



Taylor Spears



Chapter 3 Buying it: Financialisation through socialisation



Natascha van der Zwan



Chapter 4 Financial logic and bankers’ institutional entrepreneurship: The politics of the "zombies" debate in bankruptcy proceedings at the Commercial Court of Paris (2000–2005)



Emmanuel Lazega, Lise Mounier and Sylvan Lemaire

PART II



Passing through boundaries: Financiers as intermediaries in conversion to financial logics



Introduction: Financialising economic activities



Donald MacKenzie



Chapter 5 The financialization of the private wealth of farmers: Is it the work of the banks?



Gilles Laferté and Abdoul Diallo



Chapter 6 Financial backlash: When local bankers face social protest



Quentin Ravelli



Chapter 7 The assetisation of South African farmland: The role of finance and brokers



Antoine Ducastel and Ward Anseeuw



PART III



Crossing boundaries: Individual careers as vehicles for financialisation



Introduction: The financialisation of finance: The transformation of the French financial eli