Figures for what purposes? The issues at stake in the struggles to define and control the uses of statistics

Gilles, Marion

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-44000-2_12

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 8 publications

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“…Second, particularly in growing fields such as social and environmental reporting (cf., Cho & Patten, 2013), measures characterize both academic work and in applied practice, where they are used for reporting and disclosure purposes. It is common for academics to adopt measures used by practitioners and vice versa, often without taking into account the unique settings in which metrics are designed, by whom and for what purposes (cf., Gilles, 2016). Sociologists of quantification have noted how metrics that were developed for one purpose often shift to different purposes (Desrosières, 1993); internal accounting figures become external benchmarks, feedback metrics become performance targets, and the like.…”

Section: The Metrics Of Ethicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Metrics of Ethics and the Ethics of Metrics

Islam

Greenwood

2021

J Bus Ethics

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Metrics shape our social worlds in many and more ways. Everyday quantifications of our preferences, our behaviors and our relationships, alter us and the institutions that we constitute. This essay takes a brief look at the metrics of business ethics through two analytic devices. Representation explains the notion that metrics can capture or demonstrate ethics (the metrics of ethics) and performativity explains the notion that metrics can shape or constitute ethics (the ethics of metrics). The analytic distinction between representation and performativity is obscured in practice when metrics become targets, indeed much of the social power of metrics comes from their use as targets. Hence, we should pay attention to the world of practice in which measuring and doing are entangled. However, we should not lose sight of the limitations of measurement and the possibility that there are areas of ethical life best left unmeasured.

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Section: The Metrics Of Ethicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Metrics of Ethics and the Ethics of Metrics

Islam

Greenwood

2021

J Bus Ethics

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Just Look at the Numbers: A Case Study on Quantification in Corporate Environmental Disclosures

et al. 2020

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This paper sheds further light on the role of quantification in corporate environmental disclosures. Quantification is an inherently social practice, which has attracted a fair amount of academic interest in recent years. At the same time, in the field of social and environmental accounting there is a paucity of research on quantification or the role it plays for organisations, for organisational communication and in societies more broadly. Accordingly, in this paper, we will draw on a qualitative case study to discuss the potential implications that might arise from the use of quantified information in corporate environmental disclosures. Our case study illustrates the diverse effects of quantification suggested in the prior literature by placing them in the context of corporate environmental disclosures. We discuss how quantification implies fake precisionism and promotes commensuration of incomparables, thereby limiting the discussion to themes and questions preferred by company management. We maintain that quantification, while appearing to produce neutral and value-free information, has a substantive ethical dimension through how it implicates accountability relationships as well as the respective power relations between diverse stakeholders in societies.

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Figures for what purposes? The issues at stake in the struggles to define and control the uses of statistics

Cited by 2 publications

References 8 publications

The Metrics of Ethics and the Ethics of Metrics

The Metrics of Ethics and the Ethics of Metrics

Just Look at the Numbers: A Case Study on Quantification in Corporate Environmental Disclosures

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