The Everyday Practice of Valuation and Investment: Political Imaginaries of Shareholder Value by Horacio Ortiz

1
THE ORGANIZATIONAL SPACE
OF FINANCIAL VALUE

E VERYDAY practices in the financial industry’s global
space of operations are organized by the application of
standardized procedures of valuation and investment.
Observing the application of these procedures in the offices of
two particular companies—Brokers Inc. in New York and Acme
in Paris—allows us to study some of the fundamental rules of the
global distribution of money established by the financial industry.

In order to do this, it is important to analyze the details of
these procedures and the limited variety of meanings they can
have for employees. It is also crucial to study how this application
occurs in an organizational setting with specific rules concerning
the relations between employees, between employees and companies,

and between companies. These relations are partly formalized in

contracts and regulations. They are also subject to rules
about how to obtain profits, salaries, and bonuses. This chapter
presents the main organizational rules of everyday practice that
the employees of Brokers Inc. and Acme used to define the value
of listed stocks. The following chapters will then focus, within
these rules, on the imaginaries of investors and efficient markets.
Arjaliès et al. provide a very detailed analysis of the contractual

interlocking of companies within the financial industry.

The circulation of money, from the legal owner of the money
to the seller of a stock listed on a stock exchange, can involve
a myriad of companies with tasks that can be different but also
overlapping. Companies and employees are bound by a set of
contractual relations that institutionalize procedures of valuation

and investment, which are defined as the means by which to
realize the money owner’s interest. Arjaliès et al. show that these
financial companies cannot change their investment methods
even when one of their clients requests it. This is because each
company has contracts with many others and any change would
implicate all of them, but there is no overarching authority to do
allow such change. At the global level, companies are bound by
myriads of contracts across the fragmented space of state regulations.

Within this organizational space, valuation and investment
procedures appear to employees as fundamental requirements of
their everyday practice.
Like those in other bureaucracies, employees in the financial
industry may not totally understand the relation between their
practices and those of companies in the rest of the industry to
which they are connected.
 Also, the ways in which employees
relate to the money they contribute to distribute worldwide are
multiple and often vague or ambiguous.
 More generally, employees may consider their practices technical

operations that can
be repeated without concern for the distributive effects beyond
the official boundaries of their organization. Part of the meaning

of these practices for employees comes from peer recognition
in everyday interactions. Employees may consider there is ethical

worth in applying professional rules correctly.
 They may have
a wide array of emotional relations to their work, ranging from
rejection to adherence and including many forms of indifference.
In all these cases, the way they implement valuation and investment

procedures connects with their nonprofessional lives and 
 

The Everyday Practice of Valuation and Investment: Political Imaginaries of Shareholder Value by Horacio Ortiz