Financialization at Work ─ Key Texts and Analysis

Crisis with US sub-prime mortgages, paralysis in global credit markets and the run on Northern Rock all wake-up calls to the growing influence of finance and financial markets on the lives of ordinary people. Social scientists began debating financialization in the late 2000s much as they debated globalizsation in the 1990s, and this important book prepares the way by allowing readers to (re)define financialization for themselves.

The articles are grouped by discourse, covering not only inter-war liberal collectivism and current cultural economy, but also the agency theory of mainstream finance and political economy of various kinds. Helpful commentaries introduce each individual reading while section introductions analyze the assumptions, core propositions, achievements and limits in each distinct literature.

This book will challenge readers to bring a new understanding to the financialization of present day capitalism. It is an invaluable resource for students and researchers from business and management, plus all the social sciences with interests in political and cultural economy.

The team of editors work together on financialization and financial innovation. Their most recent book, Financialization and Strategy (Froud et al), was published by Routledge in 2006 and current projects include work on elites for a Sociological Review monograph. They are all researchers at the ESRC Centre for Research in Socio Cultural Change (www.cresc.ac.uk) where Karel Williams is co-director. Ismail Erturk, Julie Froud, Adam Leaver, and Karel Williams teach at Manchester Business School, University of Manchester and Sukhdev Johal at the School of Management, Royal Holloway, University of London. They have also set up the International Working Group on Financialisation (www.iwgf.org).

General Introduction

Section 1 History: Critique of the Rentier and Financier - Introduction

1. Against the Rentier and Financier R.H. Tawney

2. Control, Liquidity and the "Community Interest" Adolf A. Berle and Gardiner Means

3. Speculation, Cyclicality and the Euthanasia of the Rentier John Maynard Keynes

Section 2 Agency Theory: The Value Maximizing Manager? - Introduction

4. Making Internal Control Systems Work Michael Jensen

5. Contracts, Discipline and Management Pay Henri L.Tosi et al

6. Testing the Pay/ Performance Relation Eugene Fama

7. Whose Company is it Anyway? Paddy Ireland

8. Financial Intermediaries: Working for Themselves? Peter Folkman et al

Section 3 Political Economy: Accumulation and Innovation - Introduction

9. A Finance-Led Growth Regime? Robert Boyer

10. Accumulation and the Profits of Finance Greta Krippner

11. Financialization and the Slowdown of Accumulation Engelbert Stockhammer

12. Financialization, Neoliberalism and Income Inequality in the USA Gérard Duménil and Dominique Lévy

Section 4 Cultural Economy: Narrative and Performative Discrepancies - Introduction

13. Financialization of Daily Life Randy Martin

14. The New Economy and a New Market Culture Nigel Thrift

15. Performativity and the Black Scholes Model Donald MacKenzie and Yuval Millo

16. The Final Salary Pensions "Crisis" Paul Langley

Section 5 Current Debates: Financialized Management - Introduction

17. The Finance Conception of the Firm Neil Fligstein

18. Shareholder Value and Corporate Governance William Lazonick and Mary O’Sullivan

19. Logics of Bargaining in the German Automotive Industry Jürgen Kädtler and Hans Joachim Sperling

20. GE Under Jack Welch: Narrative, Performative and the Business Model Julie Froud et al