Counting before acting? The performativity of carbon accounting called into question - Calculation acts and dispositifs in a big French construction company

Compter pour agir ? La performativité de la comptabilité carbone en question - Actes de calcul et mise en dispositif dans une grande entreprise française du secteur de la construction

Morgane Le Breton and Franck Aggeri ()
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Morgane Le Breton: CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - Mines Paris - PSL (École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris) - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - I3 - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Franck Aggeri: CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - Mines Paris - PSL (École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris) - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - I3 - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: The emerging field of carbon accounting, a system based on conventions and designed to measure greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in companies and organizations, is currently generating interest both in industry and among researchers. The literature has however highlighted the fact that companies' use of carbon accounting has often been limited to public relations practices and has failed to result in low-carbon strategic collective action by companies. This article explores how carbon accounting practices could be performative, that is to say, able to deeply transform companies' practices and strategies. In order to do so, a case study of one specific company, " company V, " is examined. In particular, the process of performation through elementary calculation acts – in other words, managerial situations where speech acts are based on a calculation – are considered. We show that calculations based on carbon accounting, if repeated and integrated into a broader strategic dispositif, are performative. The contribution is twofold, for we show: first from an empirical standpoint, little-known phenomena pertaining to the actual use of carbon accounting in organizations; and second from a theoretical standpoint, the role of calculation acts in the launching and maintenance of the new form of collective action that a strategic dispositif is.

Keywords: performativity; dispositive; carbon accounting; calculation acts; felicitous conditions; performativité; dispositif; comptabilité carbone; actes de calcul; conditions de félicité (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-01866971v1
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in M@n@gement, 2018, 21 (2), pp.834 - 857. ⟨10.3917/mana.212.0834⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01866971

DOI: 10.3917/mana.212.0834

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