What Is a Catastrophe Model Worth?

Cabantous, Laure; Dupont-Courtade, Théodora

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198712282.003.0009

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…In practice, however, investment managers have been shown to inform their investment decisions by mobilizing alternative forms of knowledge, including intuition, personal judgments, emotions, and even scents (Arjaliès et al, 2017). In a context similar to investment managers, Cabantous and Dupont-Courtade (2015) show that catastrophe risk analysts-who evaluate the exposure of insurance companies to catastrophic risks (e.g., hurricanes and earthquakes)-do not rely blindly on catastrophe modeling. Instead, the risk analysts form their own judgments of the extent and nature of the risks under study.…”

Section: Visuals As Calculative Devicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Numbers: How Investment Managers Accommodate Societal Issues in Financial Decisions

Arjaliès

Bansal

2018

Organization Studies

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Investment managers use financial numbers to assess the quality of their portfolios, which requires them to estimate the market value of their assets—i.e., the priced trading of such assets. Prior research has shown that investment managers tend to disregard information that does not easily integrate into financial numbers, such as environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria. We argue that when investment managers use visuals to incarnate ESG criteria, they are more likely to accommodate societal issues in their financial decisions. We undertook a three-year ethnography of an asset management company to better understand how investment managers respond to ESG criteria. We found that fixed-income investment managers attempted to include ESG criteria in their financial models by financializing the data, so that ESG-related information could be commensurated with their existing models. Equity investment managers, on the other hand, did not financialize ESG issues, but introduced visuals, specifically emojis, to incarnate ESG issues. In this way, ESG criteria were juxtaposed against, rather than integrated into, financial criteria. In doing so, equity managers created a sense of dissonance between financial numbers and the visuals, which fostered creative friction. The visuals permitted equity managers to analyze the ESG criteria not only for their financial insights, but also for the social and environmental information that could not be financialized. We discuss the implications of these findings for prior research on financialization and calculative devices.

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Section: Visuals As Calculative Devicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Numbers: How Investment Managers Accommodate Societal Issues in Financial Decisions

Arjaliès

Bansal

2018

Organization Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In practice, however, investment managers have been shown to inform their investment decisions by mobilizing alternative forms of knowledge, including intuition, personal judgments, emotions and even scents (Arjaliès et al, 2017). In a context similar to investment managers, Cabantous and Dupont-Courtade (2015) show that catastrophe risk analysts-who evaluate the exposure of insurance companies to catastrophic risks (e.g., hurricanes and earthquakes)-do not rely blindly on catastrophe modelling.…”

Section: Visuals As Calculative Devicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond numbers: How investment managers accommodate societal issues in financial decisions

Arjaliès

Bansal

2018

Proceedings

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Investment managers use financial numbers to assess the quality of their portfolios, which requires them to estimate the market value of their assets-i.e., the priced trading of such assets. Prior research has shown that investment managers tend to disregard information that does not easily integrate into financial numbers, such as environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria. We argue that when investment managers use visuals to incarnate ESG criteria, they are more likely to accommodate societal issues in their financial decisions. We undertook a three-year ethnography of an asset management company to better understand how investment managers respond to ESG criteria. We found that fixedincome investment managers attempted to include ESG criteria in their financial models by financializing the data, so that ESG-related information could be commensurated with their existing models. Equity investment managers, on the other hand, did not financialize ESG issues, but introduced the use of visuals, specifically emojis, to incarnate ESG issues. In this way, ESG criteria were juxtaposed with, rather than integrated into, financial criteria. In doing so, equity managers created a sense of dissonance between financial numbers and the visuals, which fostered creative friction. The visuals permitted equity managers to analyze the ESG criteria not only for their financial insights, but also for the social and environmental information that could not be financialized. We discuss the implications of these findings for prior research on financialization and calculative devices.

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“…Valuation can productively be defined as 'any social practice where the value or values of something is established, assessed, negotiated, provoked, maintained, constructed and/or contested' (Doganova et al 2014: 87) including 'judging, improving, appreciating, and lots of other activities' (Heuts and Mol 2013: 141). While this is a rather broad definition, the dominant tendency is to study valuation performed in connection with a particular device in the sense of a specific socio-technical assemblage with a relatively unambiguous 'interface', such as a particular ranking (Espeland and Sauder 2007), set of guidelines (van Loon and Bal 2014), rating (Rona-Tas and Hiss 2011; Pénet 2015) or model (Cabantous and Dupont-Courtade 2015). Similarly, I began the ethnographic study of whiteboard management in the department of neonatology by investigating the question 'what does the whiteboard do here?'…”

Section: Theoretical Framewor K: Modes Of Valuationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Organizational Valuation of Valuation Devices: Putting Lean whiteboard management to work in a hospital department

Hauge

2016

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This paper is about the interplay between multiple modes of valuation. The paper engages with the question of how a valuation device intersects with the working values of an organization. While the many studies of valuation practices have drawn attention to the pervasive effects of valuation devices, only a few studies have taken into account the fact that many spaces, including organizations, are already filled with practices and ideas that constitute what is valuable. Revisiting classical organization theory, this paper shows that organizations comprise multiple, more—or less—integrated modes of valuation. Empirically, the paper draws on an ethnographic study of Lean management at a children’s hospital, which is presented through analytical snapshots. The paper suggests that an organizational turn is relevant for valuation studies, as this fi rst allows an analytical expansion to include less ‘deviced’ valuations, contributes to the ongoing culture vs. device debate offering an alternative to the causal analysis of devices and effects without making the ‘ineffable culture’ what makes or breaks the causality.

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What Is a Catastrophe Model Worth?

Cited by 5 publications

References 0 publications

Beyond Numbers: How Investment Managers Accommodate Societal Issues in Financial Decisions

Beyond Numbers: How Investment Managers Accommodate Societal Issues in Financial Decisions

Beyond numbers: How investment managers accommodate societal issues in financial decisions

The Organizational Valuation of Valuation Devices: Putting Lean whiteboard management to work in a hospital department

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