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This article proposes a general framework within which to analyze the new environmental intangibles that have been proliferating over the last decades in order to address environmental problems on ...

Birch and Ward (2022) propose the concept of assetization to frame a research agenda in Human Geography. This interesting proposal suffers from a rather imprecise definition of what an asset is, and that is a gap I intend to fill. I argue that assetization, for Birch and Ward, does not concern every type of asset, but only what can be described as ‘financialized assets’, including financial as well as intangible assets. I underline what financialized financial and intangible assets have in common and how that makes them relevant for analyzing contemporary capitalism. More precise specification of the assets created by Birch and Ward's assetization process clarifies the concept's true potential contribution.

International audience; The Social Impact Bond (SIB) is a new funding mechanism for welfare programs. It is supposed to create savings for the public sector from which private returns can be deduced. Presented as a purely technical solution, SIBs discard their political morality. The Welfare Convention Approach (WCA) is designed for studying SIBs as disputed and versatile welfare apparatuses. We claim that elements from diverse historical welfare conventions (the philanthropic, communitarian, civic, market, full employment, entrepreneurial, financial, and behavioral) reveal the diverse institutional conflicts and compromises of SIBs at the time they are implemented. In so doing, the WCA informs comparative research on SIBs. 2

L’ouvrage de Luc Boltanski et d’Eve Chiapello renoue avec une tradition historique fondatrice en sociologie, celle d’une analyse critique de l’« esprit » du capitalisme. L’ampleur et l’ambition du sujet, l’echo dont ce livre a deja beneficie aupres d’une communaute scientifique elargie (au-dela de celle des sociologues du travail et de l’entreprise) et surtout les choix theoriques et methodologiques faits par les auteurs nous ont amenes a opter pour un debat interdisciplinaire. Deux collegues...

The risk management explosion has been accompanied by the rise of risk-based regulations. The 2004 reform of the Basel Agreements (Basel II) is usually presented as a typical example of the development of such risk-based regulations. By comparing the discourses accompanying Basel II with an in-depth analysis of its technical provisions for credit risk regulation, our study shows that, if the Basel reform was driven by a neoliberal political agenda, it counter-intuitively resulted in a significant development of intrusive disciplinary processes for banks and their credit-management processes. Drawing on Foucault’s analyses of neoliberalism, the paper however suggests that the presence of disciplinary aspects in this risk-based regulation should not necessarily be regarded as a “pathological drift” or as a “subversion” from its initial neoliberal program, but rather as both neoliberalism’s other face and its very condition. Methodologically, this study also underlines the value of approaching risk management issues by an in-depth analysis of their technical specifications, since this approach enables us to construct the contrasting image of the changes presented here, and consequently to highlight the strong disciplinary processes embedded in this neoliberal-inspired reform and their structuring effects on management accounting and control processes. Finally, this approach also allows us to better understand the role played by calculative technologies in this disciplinarization process.

This article reflects on the way critical accounting research has addressed the question of liberalism. I show that the rise of this theme has been accompanied by a broadening of the issues addressed, but fairly little enlargement of the geographical spaces concerned. Three different approaches to neoliberalism are identified (as a phase of capitalism, as a discourse and as governmentality): while dialogue may exist between them, they are still disjointed and built on different inquiries. I seek to outline the contributions and limitations of each one. A second section studies the various roles critical authors have attributed to accounting and its actors in the neoliberal phenomenon and the way accounting is seen in their research (as an instrument, a project or an object). This mapping leads to proposal of an analysis framework that can be used for a broader conception of accounting's role in economic and social changes, based on a study of the conventions embedded in accounting devices and the distributive effects of the tests or trials they equip. Avenues for research are opened up throughout the article, with a view to enriching work on neoliberalism and delineating the specific contribution made by accounting researchers to its criticism.

International audience; Le souci environnemental né du constat d’une pression dommageable exercée par les activités économiques sur la biosphère a conduit à la multiplication d’initiatives et de régulations destinées à endiguer les destructions. À la mise en économie qu’effectuent de fait les acteurs économiques quand ils interagissent avec la nature (prélèvement de ressources, transformation des milieux, rejet de déchets, etc.), répondent les efforts de la théorie économique pour penser ces interactions, et l’élaboration d’instruments de politique économique pour les encadrer. Cet ouvrage pluridisciplinaire (économie, sociologie, histoire, études sociales des sciences et techniques) explore les multiples facettes de ces mises en économie de l’environnement (par son exploitation, par la théorie économique et par les politiques environnementales) à partir d’analyses historiques et contemporaines qui en montrent les enjeux, limites et opportunités. Le bilan demeure contrasté, ces différentes façons de faire l’économie de l’environnement pouvant tendre à négliger les spécificités biogéochimiques de la nature jusqu’à faire l’économie d’une prise en compte réelle de l’environnement.

Aussi bien dans les États qu’au niveau international, il est devenu courant de s’appuyer sur des indicateurs pour fixer des objectifs quantifiés et évaluer l’évolution de l’action publique et des fonctionnements administratifs. La recherche en sciences sociales qui traite du développement des indicateurs de performance est abondante et relève de traditions intellectuelles variées. Beaucoup assimilent ce mouvement à une composante du tournant néo-libéral et à une manifestation du New Public Management. Ce dossier explore les tensions entre l’utilisation d’indicateurs et l’exercice du pouvoir, en soulignant l’ambivalence de cette relation, le chiffre étant tantôt craint, tantôt désiré. Trois dimensions interdépendantes sont distinguées pour analyser le gouvernement par les indicateurs : les enjeux de savoir, les logiques de pouvoir et les formes de publicisation qui leur sont associées. Les quatre textes rassemblés portent principalement sur le suivi des résultats de politiques publiques, nationales ou internationales, abordés par des auteurs relevant de plusieurs disciplines. Ils rappellent que l’élaboration d’indicateurs participe de la construction des problèmes publics pris en charge. Ils confirment l’intérêt des analyses qui prennent au sérieux d’une part la fabrication des nombres et les conventions de calcul retenues et, d’autre part, les dispositifs de gouvernement dans lesquels ils s’inscrivent. Enfin, ils montrent que le gouvernement par les indicateurs débouche sur des formes nouvelles de bureaucratisation. At national as well as at international level, it has become frequent to use indicators to set quantified goals and to monitor the evolution of public policies and bureaucracies. Social science research dealing with the development of performance measures is extensive and related to various intellectual traditions. Many consider this movement as a component of the neo-liberal turn and as an expression of the New Public Management. This symposium explores the tensions between the use of indicators and the exercise of power, underlining the ambivalence of this relationship, figures being both feared and desired. Three interdependent dimensions are differentiated to analyse the government by numbers: the challenges of knowledge, the logic of power and the types of publicisation that are linked to them. The four collected papers mainly deal with questions related to the monitoring of the results of public policies, discussed by authors belonging to various disciplines. They remind us that the definition of indicators plays a role in the manufacturing of political problems. They confirm how important it is to analyse in depth the way numbers are created and computed as well as the management and government devices in which they are embedded. Finally, they show that the government by indicators often triggers new forms of bureaucratisation.

This special issue, “Social Impact Bonds and the Urban Transformation,” presents a set of articles that examine the tricky implementation process of Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) in diverse urban sett...

International audience; No organization is immune from the influence of management tools. Such tools as norms, indicators, ranking, evaluation grids and management control systems have moved outside the managerial and consultancy realm within which they were first developed to reach public administrations and policy-makers, as well as a range of other governmental and non-governmental organizations. Taking management tools out of the practical and utilitarian contexts to which they are often consigned and approaching them from a social analytical perspective, this book gives primacy to these everyday objects that constitute the background of organizational life and remain too often unquestioned. Bringing together developing streams of research from anthropology, political science, social psychology, sociology, accounting, organisation theory and management, Ève Chiapello and Patrick Gilbert offer an unprecedented theoretical synthesis that will help managers, scholars and policy-makers to unpack the functional and dysfunctional roles and effects of management tools within and across organizations.

The contemporary stage of capitalism is characterised by financialisation, and this context triggers the rise of a special kind of optimisation, one that uses calculative methods deriving from financial economics. One of the aims of this chapter is to grasp the assumptions that are embedded in these financial calculations, and therefore understand what they are leading us to optimise today. Optimisation is originally a branch of mathematics and computer science that seeks to model, analyse and solve problems analytically or numerically. Optimisation is indeed a quest that may take various forms. The aim of optimisation is to draw the greatest benefit from the constraints that are recognised as relevant to the calculation, whether those constraints concern budget, time, energy or anticipated negative effects. Calculating optimisation requires a convention-based definition of what is to be maximised, and under what type of constraints. The work of optimisation intervenes in this relationship of conflicting objectives.

This article shows that forms of analysis and calculation specific to finance are spreading, and changing valuation processes in various social settings. This perspective is used to contribute to the study of the recent transformations of capitalism, as financialisation is usually seen as marking the past three decades. After defining what is meant by “financialised valuation,” different examples are discussed. Recent developments concerning the valuation of assets in accounting standards and credit risk in banking regulations are used to suggest that colonisation of financial activities by financialised valuations is taking place. Other changes, concerning the valuation of social or cultural activities and environmental issues are also highlighted in order to support the hypothesis of a parallel colonisation of non-financial activities by financialised valuations. Specifically, the language of finance appears to gradually being incorporated into public policies, especially in Europe—and this trend seems to have gathered pace since the 2000s. Some interpretations are proposed to understand why public policies are seemingly increasingly reliant on financialised valuations.

International audience; Cet article porte sur la financiarisation, considérée comme un processus de transformation du monde par des pratiques, théories et instruments nés dans le secteur financier et utilisés désormais pour revisiter des questions a priori très éloignées (sociales, environnementales, éducatives, culturelles,...). Cette financiarisation des politiques publiques semble découler du projet de mobiliser l'épargne privée afin de desserrer les contraintes financières des pouvoirs publics. Nous distinguons différentes opérations qui, prises ensemble, constituent ce que nous appelons le « travail de financiarisation ».

International audience; Because it represents a threat not only for health but also for productivity, psychological violence at work is the subject of increasing attention. Meanwhile, management is seen as a practice that is more and more instrumented and consequently dehumanized. To what extent do management tools participate in psychological violence at work? Is it possible to attribute them directly to some forms of violence? Or should we rather see violence as only the result of deviant practices? Seeking to clarify these issues, this paper presents a critical review of the available literature that links management tools and workplace violence, and then discusses the lessons learned. It shows in particular that if management tools are often vectors of violence, they can also been seen as regulators or pacifiers.; Parce qu'elle représente une menace, non seulement pour la santé au travail mais aussi pour la productivité, la violence psychique au travail fait l'objet d'attentions de plus en plus vives. Parallèlement, la gestion se présente comme une pratique de plus en plus instrumentée et, semble‑t‑il, déshumanisée. Dans quelle mesure les outils de gestion participent‑ils à la violence psychique au travail. Peut‑on leur attribuer directement les manifestations de violence ? Ou doit‑on plutôt voir celles‑ci, comme la conséquence d'usages déviants ? Cherchant à éclairer ces questions, l'article présente une revue des recherches critiques construisant un lien entre les outils de gestion et la violence au travail puis en discute les enseignements. Il montre en particulier que si les outils de gestion sont parfois des vecteurs de violence, leurs usages peuvent aussi générer des régulations ayant une vertu de pacification.

The contribution of IFRS to the process of financialization of capitalism can be analysed from several angles. We first propose two meanings that can be assigned to the concept of financialization: first as a process of morphological transformation of capitalism, and second as a gradual colonisation by specific “financialised” techniques and calculation methods. We then show that in many respects IFRS can be regarded as “financialised” standards. Finally we highlight some contributions of IFRS to the morphological transformation of capitalism (that is changes in distribution of wealth and power). As a result, IFRS can be seen as much financialised as financialising standards.

Cahier de Recherche du Groupe HEC Paris, n° 777/2003; Drawing on the concept of " trial ", developed by French sociologists, this article analyzes the dynamics of employees' performance evaluation systems, particularly those involving accounting performance measures. A case study is presented as an illustration of our proposal to consider these systems as one of the major trials in the business world, that is, social arrangements organizing the testing of people and resulting in ordering them, and further in consistent social goods allocation. This analysis emphasizes the role of criticism in the dynamics and evolution of performance evaluation systems and enables us to revisit concepts like controllability or objectivity which have been presented for decades as cornerstones of performance evaluation systems either in management control or in human resource management fields.

International audience; Accounting standards as an institution of capitalism. An analysis of the transition to IFRS in Europe from 2005. In 2002, the European Union changed direction from its past efforts to harmonise European accounting systems and turned instead to a subcontractor, requiring listed European companies to adopt accounting standards drawn up by a private London-based organisation, the IASB (International Accounting Standards Board), which had until then had no public mandate. This decision was all the more significant because the EU has no institutional means of control over the IASB, although it was the first geographical group to decide to impose these standards on its businesses. IASB standards are rooted in the "anglo-saxon" tradition of standardisation for the financial markets, and the view of the enterprise they promote diverges from the accounting traditions of continental European capitalism. This article shows how the new standards are transforming the concept of enterprise, and examines the span of factors that brought about what is a major institutional change for European capitalism; Tournant le dos à ses efforts antérieurs d'harmonisation des comptabilités européennes, l'Union européenne décidait en 2002 de recourir à la sous-traitance et d'imposer aux sociétés cotées européennes l'adoption d'un référentiel comptable produit par un organisme de droit privé, l'IASB (International Accounting Standards Board), basé à Londres et dénué jusque-là de tout mandat public. La décision est d'autant plus marquante que l'UE ne dispose d'aucun moyen de contrôle institutionnel sur l'IASB alors même qu'elle constitue le premier ensemble géographique à avoir décidé d'imposer à ses entreprises ce jeu de normes. Ce dernier est en outre ancré dans la tradition anglo-saxonne de normalisation pour les marchés financiers et promeut une représentation de la firme qui s'éloigne des traditions comptables du capitalisme continental. Cet article montre en quoi les nouvelles normes transforment la conception de l'entreprise et explicite le faisceau de facteurs qui a abouti à cette transformation institutionnelle majeure pour le capitalisme européen

‘Artist critique’ is an umbrella term, synthesising the many forms of critique first levelled against the new industrial, capitalist, and bourgeois society of the nineteenth century, largely by art...

International audience; The study of the notion of ideology shows that this corpus lends itself to a wide variety of different definitions. A certain opposition runs all the way through this set of definitions. Ideology would appear to be torn between a conception that emphasises its distortion and dissimulation dimensions and another conception which views as a set of social representations. After rapidly presenting the main characteristics of these two polar extremes, Paul Ricoeur's suggestion that these two conceptions can be united is discussed and illustrated by the concept of the `spirit of capitalism', as defined in the book by Boltanski and Chiapello (1999). It is shown that this constitutes an ideology which is in fact an attempt to encompass both these conceptions. It is also shown that the concept of `trial' as proposed in that book helps greatly to understand how this reconciliation is actually possible

International audience; Our aim in this article is to explore how one might approach the language of new capitalism working in a transdisciplinary way, bringing together new sociology of capitalism (Chiapello) and critical discourse analysis (Fairclough). We focus upon 'new management ideology', and in particular on a recent book by a highly influential management 'guru' (Rosabeth Moss Kanter). The article begins with a discussion of new management ideology based particularly upon the work of Boltanski and Chiapello, followed by an outline of the version of critical discourse analysis we draw upon, and an analysis of a number of extracts from the book. In the conclusion we consider the implications of the analysis for transdisciplinary research

Chiapello Eve, Boltanski Luc, Abel Olivier. Les « petits » dans une société de réseaux. In: Autres Temps. Cahiers d'éthique sociale et politique. N°59, 1998. pp. 15-21.

This paper seeks to contribute to thinking on the role of public authorities in the regulation of economic affairs in the context of neoliberal financialized capitalism. It is based on examination of changes regarding the requirements for credit risks from the Basel I accords (1988) to the Basel II and III accords (2004-2010). The shift on this question in the Basel Accords is much more than a simple tidy-up. The literature shows that the reform of the Basel requirements for credit risk was the product of a neoliberal political agenda carried by lobbies representing market actors. Our study of the instruments used to assess credit risk and to define the associated capital requirements under Basel II and III shows that the regulatory framework effectively delegates management of the security of the financial system to the actors in the system. Yet, our study also stresses that the autonomy won through this move towards self-regulation is associated with the implementation of new types of constraints. In our case, these new constraints are taking the form of an impressive system of monitoring and control of internal risk management practices. This system is then coupled with financial incentives, in a way that has been carefully designed to lead the banks to adopt specific “financialized” practices. Michel Foucault argued in his classes on neoliberalism that neoliberalism requires, not withdrawal of the State as in traditional liberalism, but a transformation of practices by the State, which on the contrary actively intervenes to produce the right conditions for a market, and help markets to emerge and operate whenever possible. Among the necessary conditions for construction of these markets, he also stressed the importance of producing subjects (through the intermediary of biopolitics) able to act in a world made up of markets, and that the form of behaviour expected of these subjects is that of the enterprise, leading to extension of this form to all sorts of actors who used to operate in different ways (nonprofit organizations, salaried individuals, etc). Our case allows to go beyond this analysis and show that when the market agents are enterprises, they too must be subjected to active production and a conformation process, and that it cannot be just any type of enterprise; it too must go through a subjectification process that also brings a range of power techniques into play. The case consequently shows the concurrent development of liberty and discipline for enterprises in neoliberal regimes. It also offers an opportunity for close examination of the nature of the disciplinarization that goes hand in hand with neoliberal financialized capitalism. In this perspective, it especially stresses three intertwined processes: the regulator’s construction of financial incentives, the imposition of working methods and the rise of a bureaucracy of control. Finally, methodologically, this study underlines the value of approaching these issues by an in-depth analysis of the technical aspects of regulatory provisions, since this approach enables us to construct the contrasting image of the changes presented here.

To understand the theoretical project underpinning our research, we must examine the changing fortunes of reference to ‘capitalism’ in French sociology over the last thirty years. This reference occupied an important place in the literature of the 1960s and 1970s, before declining in the late 1970s, to be practically ignored by the most innovative streams of social sciences in the period 1985-1995.

International audience; The purpose of this paper is to cast a new light on the post-Sombartian debate. As we know, Sombart (Sombart W. Der Moderne Kapitalismus. M¨unchen, Leipzig: Duncker and Humbolt, 1916) thought that the invention of double-entry bookkeeping was essential to the birth of capitalism. Max Weber developed the same theme, but to a lesser extent. Accounting scholars have debated the idea quite extensively during the 20th century. All these previous works have in common the fact that they address the historical question by comparing accounting practices to business practices, some of which are interpreted as capitalist. In this paper, my aim is not so much to understand the birth of capitalism, but to contribute to some understanding of the birth of the concept of capitalism itself. The concept was forged during the 19th century. At that time, capitalism and a certain kind of double-entry bookkeeping practice that was able to highlight the circuit of capital were inextricably linked. It might be suggested that this historical situation greatly helped the scholars of the period to conceptualise what they called capitalism, and it is easy to show that the notion of capitalism itself is rooted in accounting notions. I will thus argue that the history of how the concept of capitalism was invented is an example of the influence of accounting ideas on economic and sociological thinking

International audience; The EU-member States have long intended to harmonise their respective accounting rules in order to facilitate the comparison between European companies. This process was brutally accelerated by a 2002 regulation announcing that as of 2005, listed companies would be required to comply with the accounting standards enacted by the IASB (International Accounting Standards Board), a private body which, until then, had no public mandate. After having tried to harmonise internally the respective standards of its members, the EU has thus decided to resort to private subcontracting, an even more puzzling decision when one realizes that at the time, the EU had simply no statutory control means on the IASB. Building on this striking episode of privatisation of the regulatory process, we first examine the structure and governance of the IASB, and the process leading to the transplantation of its norms into EU law. In a second part, we argue that while diverse, the reasons behind such relinquishment of public authority lie primarily within the EU itself. In a third part, we show that in the area of accounting, such transfer of competences went well beyond known forms of delegation to private sector. In a final part, we discuss the subsequent—and so far successful attempt of the EU to reassert its authority as well as its agenda in this area

International audience; Les responsables et directeurs développement durable ont une fonction paradoxale au sein des entreprises : ils perçoivent un salaire de ces organisations pour leur montrer leurs impacts négatifs sur le plan social et environnemental y compris lorsque la prise en compte de ces impacts apparaît peu compatibles avec l'optimisation de leurs résultats économiques et financiers. L'étude présentée dans cet article s'est intéressée aux personnes qui exercent cette fonction, à leurs parcours, à leurs conceptions, et aux formes de leur engagement. Elle est fondée sur une enquête en deux étapes (11 entretiens en profondeur, suivis d'un envoi de questionnaires - 34 réponses).Mots-clés: Cadres, Dirigeants, Développement durable

Parmi les innombrables artefacts qui contribuent a faconner le fonctionnement economique et a lui donner une forme a la fois precise et historiquement changeante, il en est un, la comptabilite des entreprises, qui n’est pas un artefact anodin de la vie economique. Celui-ci a un impact profondement structurant et construit l’un des agents principaux du systeme economique : l’entreprise.

International audience; An unprecedented privatization of legal rules: The EU's accounting policy. EU member states have, for a long time, been harmonizing their accounting rules in order to facilitate comparisons among countries. A new regulation in 2002 has suddenly sped up this process. Under it, companies quoted in the stock exchange are, since 2005, required to comply with the standards set by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), a private body without any public mandate. After trying to harmonize its members' standards, the EU's decision to resort to private subcontracting is even more puzzling given the Union's lack of any statutory control over the IASB. In this impressive case of the privatization of a regulatory process, attention is focused on the incorporation of IASB standards in EU law and on the structure and governance of this board. This transfer of power is much broader than usual forms of delegation to the private sector. Although several reasons underlie this relinquishment of public authority, the primary one lies within the EU itself.; Les Etats-membres de l'Union Européenne (UE) ont entrepris depuis longtemps un travail d'harmonisation de leurs comptabilités afin de faciliter la comparaison entre entreprises européennes. Ce processus a connu une accélération brutale en 2002, lorsqu'un. règlement a annoncé qu'à compter de 2005 les sociétés cotées européennes devraient adopter pour la production de leurs comptes consolidés les normes comptables élaborées par l'IASB (" International Accounting Standards Board "), organisme de droit privé, dénué jusque là de tout mandat public. Après avoir essayé d'harmoniser elle-même les référentiels nationaux, l'Union Européenne a ainsi décidé de recourir à un sous-traitant privé, décision d'autant plus marquante qu'elle ne dispose d'aucun moyen de contrôle statutaire sur l'IASB. Cet article est consacré à cet épisode de privatisation du processus normatif. Nous analysons tout d'abord la structure et la gouvernance de l'IASB ainsi que les modalités d'incorporation au droit européen des normes qui y sont produites. Nous montrons ensuite que ce transfert de compétences au secteur privé va bien au-delà des formes habituelles de délégation. Nous montrons enfin que si cet effacement de la puissance publique a des causes variées, celles-ci doivent être principalement recherchées au sein de l'Union Européenne

International audience; A century after the publication of Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the "Spirit" of Capitalism, a major new work examines network-based organization, employee autonomy and post-Fordist horizontal work structures.

International audience

Historically, the development of budgetary control in French businesses took place within the ideological context of the debate on organisation of the economy following the economic and political crises of the 1930s and 1940s. Budgetary control, a management practice theorised as early as the 1920s in America, was seen by many actors as one of the practices that could provide a solution to the economic and social problems facing them. In other words, its increasingly widespread adoption was not only due to the search for ever-greater efficiency, but also to a clear ideological attraction. Better business management was not the only goal: more broadly, there was a desire to change society as a whole. This article is part of the research tradition of studying accounting in its social context. The history of accounting is examined in the light of the general political and economic history of the 20th century, associating accounting practices and the capitalists institutions of a given period and country. We stress an as yet largely unexplored aspect: the role played by the critique of capitalism and the social reformers’ proposals in changing business management methods.

Historically, the development of budgetary control in French businesses took place within the ideological context of the debate on organisation of the economy following the economic and political crises of the 1930s and 1940s. Budgetary control was seen by many actors as one of the practices that could provide a solution to the economic and social problems facing them. In other words, its increasingly widespread adoption was not only due to the search for ever-greater efficiency, but also to a clear ideological attraction. The development of budgetary control is examined in the light of the general political and economic history of the 20th century, associating accounting practices and the capitalist institutions of a given period and country. We stress an as yet largely unexplored aspect: the role played by the critique of capitalism and the social reformers' proposals in changing business management methods., Le développement du contrôle budgétaire dans les entreprises en France s'est fait dans le contexte idéologique des réflexions sur l'organisation économique suscitées par les crises économique et politique des années 1930 et 1940. Le contrôle budgétaire est apparu alors à de nombreux acteurs comme étant l'une des pratiques susceptibles de répondre aux problèmes économiques et sociaux auxquels ils faisaient face. C'est dire que sa diffusion ne fut pas seulement portée par la volonté de rechercher une efficience toujours accrue mais aussi par une évidente séduction idéologique. Nous replaçons ici le développement du contrôle budgétaire dans l'histoire politique et économique du XXème siècle et mettons en relation les pratiques comptables avec les institutions du capitalisme d'une époque et d'un pays donné. Nous insistons sur un aspect jusqu'ici peu étudié : le rôle de la critique du capitalisme et des propositions des réformateurs sociaux dans la transformation des modes de gestion des entreprises.