The hacker's reasoning model: the case of VAT fraud on carbon quotas with the series D'Argent et de Sang (Of Money and Blood)

Carol-Anne Loher-Delalune () and Mathias Szpirglas ()
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Carol-Anne Loher-Delalune: GRANEM - Groupe de Recherche Angevin en Economie et Management - UA - Université d'Angers - Institut Agro Rennes Angers - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement, IAE Angers - Institut d'Administration des Entreprises (IAE) - Angers - UA - Université d'Angers
Mathias Szpirglas: Université Gustave Eiffel, IRG - Institut de Recherche en Gestion - UPEC UP12 - Université Paris-Est Créteil Val-de-Marne - Paris 12 - Université Gustave Eiffel, IAE Paris-Est - IAE Paris-Est-Université Gustave Eiffel

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Abstract: This article proposes to conceptualize the mechanism of VAT carousel fraud through the lens of C/K design theory (Hatchuel & Weil, 2003), using the French television series D'Argent et de Sang (Of Money and Blood, Canal+, 2023–2024) as an analytical terrain. Drawing on verbatim extracts and scenes from the series, we model the construction of representations by multiple actors — the French State, the Caisse des Dépôts, Overgreen, and fraudsters — to show how structural misunderstandings (quiproquos) emerge and are exploited. Our results formalize a process model of the hacker's reasoning: fraudsters are those who identify and activate semantic disjunctions that remain invisible to normal users of the system. This work contributes to the literature on fraud conceptualization in management, while demonstrating the analytical potential of serialized fiction as qualitative data.

Keywords: Organisational resilience; Innovative design; Hacker reasoning; Carbon Market; VAT Fraud; C-K theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-02-04
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Published in 19th SIG Workshop on Design Theory, Mines Paris Tech, Feb 2026, Paris, France

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05629565

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