scispace - formally typeset
Search or ask a question
Book

The New Spirit of Capitalism

01 Jan 2005-
TL;DR: A century after the publication of Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the "Spirit" of Capitalism, a major new work examines network-based organization, employee autonomy and post-Fordist horizontal work structures.
Abstract: A century after the publication of Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the "Spirit" of Capitalism, a major new work examines network-based organization, employee autonomy and post-Fordist horizontal work structures.
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argue that entrepreneurship has become an ideology of the "new capitalist spirit" that needs to be questioned and the prime object of their prime object is to question the benefits of entrepreneurship in increasingly competitive labour markets.
Abstract: Pointed to as a means of insertion into increasingly competitive labour markets, entrepreneurship has become an ideology of the ‘new capitalist spirit’ that needs to be questioned. Our prime object...

82 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
Ronen Shamir1
TL;DR: The authors analyzes the phenomenon of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in light of two sociological paradigms of globalization: "world culture" and "world capitalism" and finds that while CSR may be theorized as a emergent "world cultural" model, the culture paradigm does not take sufficient account of the role of corporations in shaping it, and (2) the world capitalism paradigm offers stronger tools for theorizing the mechanisms of change that mediate between political agency and institutionalized regulatory outcomes.
Abstract: This article analyzes the phenomenon of ‘‘corporate social responsibility’’ (CSR; specifically: social private regulation) in light of two sociological paradigms of globalization: ‘‘world-culture’’ and ‘‘world-capitalism.’’ The study treats three analytically distinct features of CSR: the political contestation over its meaning, the role of business studies in transforming it into a managerial model, and its consolidation as a market of authorities. The study finds that (1) while CSR may be theorized as a emergent ‘‘world cultural’’ model, the culture paradigm does not take sufficient account of the role of corporations in shaping it, and (2) while both paradigms recognize the transition from political contestations over the character of CSR to its deployment by means of private regulation, the worldcapitalism paradigm offers stronger tools for theorizing the mechanisms of change that mediate between political agency and institutionalized regulatory outcomes. For several decades, the notion of corporate social responsibility (hereinafter CSR) had been mainly nurtured on the sidelines of corporate activity and business management scholarship (Carroll 1999). In the 1990s, consumer groups and rights organizations began to invoke the notion of CSR in order to convey their normative expectations from corporations, often in respect to the latter’s commercial operations in underregulated countries. Yet in the course of less than a decade, CSR has become associated with transnational regulatory frameworks and advanced managerial systems, all in all signaling a major relocation of political authority and important changes in the way law is deployed on a global scale (Vogel 2005). Also in the 1990s, and in tandem with the changes in the scope and meaning of CSR, there was a major theoretical and empirical shift in the political and legal sciences from the study of governments to that of governance (or ‘‘new governance’’) and a corresponding interest in private and self-regulation (or ‘‘soft law’’) (Braithwaite & Drahos 2000; Rosenau & Czempiel 1992). Inas

81 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
Jens Beckert1
TL;DR: Scharpf and Scharpf as discussed by the authors distinguish between input-oriented and output-oriented legitimacy, and make a distinction between the two types of legitimacy between input and output legitimacy.
Abstract: The distinction between input-oriented legitimacy and output-oriented legitimacy (Scharpf, Fritz W, 1997. Economic Integration, Democracy and the Welfare State. Journal of European Public Policy, 4...

80 citations


Cites background from "The New Spirit of Capitalism"

  • ...Culturally the promises of neoliberalism conjured images of increasing autonomy, individuality, and choice (Boltanski and Chiapello 2005, Evans and Sewell 2013, Jenson and Levi 2013) – values that were advocated not only by market liberals, but also by cosmopolitan liberals and many of the new…...

    [...]

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyse the strategies of these new corporate intermediaries based on a market analysis and on interviews with their representatives, arguing that the marketisation of elderly care in Switzerland is illustrative of today's neoliberalism in that it combines progre...
Abstract: Taking the recent debate on austerity as a starting point, this paper discusses contradictions in current processes of neoliberalisation using the marketisation of elderly care in Switzerland as an example. Just as in other countries, an austerity rationality in public spending and the neoliberal restructuring of public health services paved the way for the emergence of private suppliers of 24 hours home care. These new agencies hire migrant women from Eastern European countries and sell packaged care services to the elderly. In so doing, they play a key role in reconfiguring care according to a market logic. They shape the working conditions of live-in migrant care workers and the definition of care itself as a marketable good. In our paper, we analyse the strategies of these new corporate intermediaries based on a market analysis and on interviews with their representatives. We argue that the marketisation of elderly care in Switzerland is illustrative of today's neoliberalism in that it combines progre...

80 citations


Cites background from "The New Spirit of Capitalism"

  • ...Processes of neoliberalisation produce configurations in which ‘some people’s immobility is necessary for other people’s mobility’ (Boltanski & Chiapello, 2005, p. 362)....

    [...]

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The sociology of worth complements existing sociological approaches to accounting by providing a language and a conceptual toolbox for understanding the multiple rationalities in which accounting is implicated, and it has the potential to act as a bridge between institutional theory and practice theory as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce and illustrate the insights of the sociology of worth as advanced by sociologist Luc Boltanski and his collaborator economist/statistician Laurent Thevenot in their works, including their path‐breaking book De la justification published in 1991.Design/methodology/approach – The paper explores the basic tenets of this “new sociology” and draws on it to render a reinterpretation of Ansari and Euske's study of cost accounting in a military depot.Findings – The sociology of worth complements extant sociological approaches to accounting by providing a language and a conceptual tool‐box for understanding the multiple rationalities in which accounting is implicated. In addition, given its pragmatic micro level approach to accounting, it has the potential to act as a bridge between institutional theory and practice theory.Originality/value – This paper is the first known to render an extensive discussion of Boltanski and Thevenot's work in the accounting literat...

79 citations

References
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a translation of the poem "The Pleasures of Philosophy" is presented, with a discussion of concrete rules and abstract machines in the context of art and philosophy.
Abstract: Translator's Foreword: Pleasures of Philosophy Notes on the Translation and Acknowledgements Author's Note 1. Introduction: Rhizome 2. 1914: One or Several Wolves? 3. 10,000 BC: The Geology of Morals (Who Does the Earth Think It Is?) 4. November 20th, 1923: Postulates of Linguistics 5. 587BC-AD70: On Several Regimes of Signs 6. November 28th, 1947: How Do You Make Yourself a Body Without Organs? 7. Year Zero: Faciality 8. 1874: Three Novellas, or "What Happened?" 9. 1933: Micropolitics and Segmentarity 10. 1730: Becoming Intense, Becoming-Animal, Becoming Imperceptible... 11. 1837: Of the Refrain 12. 1227: Treatise on Nomadology - The War Machine 13. 7000BC: Apparatus of Capture 14. 1440: The Smooth and the Striated 15. Conclusion: Concrete Rules and Abstract Machines Notes Bibliography List of Illustrations Index

14,735 citations

Posted Content
01 Jan 2012
TL;DR: The 2008 crash has left all the established economic doctrines - equilibrium models, real business cycles, disequilibria models - in disarray as discussed by the authors, and a good viewpoint to take bearings anew lies in comparing the post-Great Depression institutions with those emerging from Thatcher and Reagan's economic policies: deregulation, exogenous vs. endoge- nous money, shadow banking vs. Volcker's Rule.
Abstract: The 2008 crash has left all the established economic doctrines - equilibrium models, real business cycles, disequilibria models - in disarray. Part of the problem is due to Smith’s "veil of ignorance": individuals unknowingly pursue society’s interest and, as a result, have no clue as to the macroeconomic effects of their actions: witness the Keynes and Leontief multipliers, the concept of value added, fiat money, Engel’s law and technical progress, to name but a few of the macrofoundations of microeconomics. A good viewpoint to take bearings anew lies in comparing the post-Great Depression institutions with those emerging from Thatcher and Reagan’s economic policies: deregulation, exogenous vs. endoge- nous money, shadow banking vs. Volcker’s Rule. Very simply, the banks, whose lending determined deposits after Roosevelt, and were a public service became private enterprises whose deposits determine lending. These underlay the great moderation preceding 2006, and the subsequent crash.

3,447 citations

Book
01 Jan 1967
TL;DR: The Society of the Spectacle as mentioned in this paper is one of the most influential theoretical works for a wide range of political and revolutionary practice in the 1960s, and it has been widely used in the literature since.
Abstract: For the first time, Guy Debord's pivotal work Society of the Spectacle appears in a definitive and authoritative English translation. Originally published in France in 1967, Society of the Spectacle offered a set of radically new propositions about the nature of contemporary capitalism and modern culture. At the same time it was one of the most influential theoretical works for a wide range of political and revolutionary practice in the 1960s. Today, Debord's work continues to be in the forefront of debates about the fate of consumer society and the operation of modern social power. In a sweeping revision of Marxist categories, the notion of the spectacle takes the problem of the commodity from the sphere of economics to a point at which the commodity as an image dominates not only economic exchange but the primary communicative and symbolic activity of all modern societies.Guy Debord was one of the most important participants in the activities associated with the Situationist International in the 1960s. Also an artist and filmmaker, he is the author of Memoires and Commentaires sur la societe du spectacle. A Swerve Edition, distributed for Zone Books.

3,391 citations

Book
01 Mar 1987
TL;DR: Relevance Lost as mentioned in this paper is an overview of the evolution of management accounting in American business, from textile mills in the 1880s and the giant railroad, steel, and retail corporations, to today's environment of global competition and computer-automated manufacturers.
Abstract: "Relevance Lost" is an overview of the evolution of management accounting in American business, from textile mills in the 1880s and the giant railroad, steel, and retail corporations, to today's environment of global competition and computer-automated manufacturers. The book shows that modern corporations must work toward designing new management accounting systems that will assist managers more fully in their long-term planning. It is the winner of the American Accounting Association's Deloitte Haskins & Sells/Wildman Award Medal. It is also available in paperback: ISBN 0875842542.

3,308 citations