Marc Lenglet

Bio: Marc Lenglet is an academic researcher from NEOMA Business School. The author has contributed to research in topics: Performative utterance & Variety (cybernetics). The author has an hindex of 5, co-authored 19 publications receiving 93 citations. Previous affiliations of Marc Lenglet include European Business School London & European Business School Paris.

How to undo things with words? On counter-performative effects in the financial industry

Abstract: This article discusses the notion of counter-performativity as defined by MacKenzie and Spears (2014), drawing on an analysis of how performative processes unfold in the financial industry. To make...

Coder, décoder, recoder ? - Ordres normatifs et enjeux de la régulation financière à l’ère du trading algorithmique

Abstract: Cet article met en perspective la pratique de la regulation financiere telle qu’elle se deploie au sein des marches financiers contemporains, alors qu’un nouvel ordre normatif y a emerge ces dix dernieres annees. Celui-ci, porte par les technologies algorithmiques, bouleverse les conditions d’exercice de la regulation. Le code informatique, se substituant a la parole et a l’ecriture, induit en effet un basculement d’un ordre normatif a un autre : la norme, auparavant explicitee par recours a des dispositifs interpretatifs, se trouve remplacee par un ordre place sous le signe du calcul. L’auteur identifie quelques-unes des consequences portees par ce basculement recent.

‘Public’ Versus ‘Natural’ Grammars: Complex Domination in the Financial Intermediation Industry

Abstract: In this article, we make the point that managerial domination as described by pragmatic sociology is an appropriate notion to make sense of complex forms of domination in contemporary organizations Based on Lemieux’s work on ‘grammars’, we complement approaches of complex domination put forward by pragmatic sociologists such as Boltanski and Thevenot We illustrate these ideas by means of an ethnographic study of the financial intermediation industry Our analysis sketches out an alternative conceptualization of power in such environments, and by so doing, helps us delineate the features that characterize complex financial domination We conclude by arguing that this type of domination is the result of specific contradictions inherent to the grammars of financial intermediation

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

Abstract: What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

Market technologies and the pragmatics of prices

Abstract: This article contributes to a pragmatist analysis of pricing and valuation through an account of the production of closing prices at the Paris Bourse. The Paris Bourse is an electronic stock exchange and the actors in charge of its technological configuration often need to face concerns about the quality of the prices that the configuration produces. Closing prices are particularly important because they constitute references that circulate widely. The author analyses how a problem of representativeness of closing prices was raised in the late 1990s and how several techniques aimed at solving it. In order to deal with this problem of representativeness, the author proposes the consideration of prices as signs in a pragmatist manner. Adapting Charles S. Peirce's theory of the sign to the study of prices, the author concentrates attention on the material display of prices, on their capacity to stand as traces of some event, and on the way they may suit a set of calculative conventions.

The ethnographer and the algorithm: beyond the black box

Abstract: A common theme in social science studies of algorithms is that they are profoundly opaque and function as “black boxes.” Scholars have developed several methodological approaches in order to address algorithmic opacity. Here I argue that we can explicitly enroll algorithms in ethnographic research, which can shed light on unexpected aspects of algorithmic systems—including their opacity. I delineate three meso-level strategies for algorithmic ethnography. The first, algorithmic refraction, examines the reconfigurations that take place when computational software, people, and institutions interact. The second strategy, algorithmic comparison, relies on a similarity-and-difference approach to identify the instruments’ unique features. The third strategy, algorithmic triangulation, enrolls algorithms to help gather rich qualitative data. I conclude by discussing the implications of this toolkit for the study of algorithms and future of ethnographic fieldwork.