Analytical framework

In section 3.2.2, I provided two examples of pragmatic valuation analyses: Heuts and Mol’s article on the valuing of tomatoes and the work of Callon and co-authors on valuation in a market setting. Coming from different branches of ANT, Heuts and Mol foreground “valuing” as multiple and situational activities that blend with all kinds of activities, while Callon and colleagues tend to foreground the relational processes in “valuation” and describe valuation as a special process involving special activities. Studying valuation in different contexts, Heuts and Mol suggest a way to describe how a particular thing is valued in practice, while Callon has a focus on valuation in market settings.

3 In this usage of “performative,” Heuts and Mol make reference to the notion of valorising (Vatin, 2013), i.e. performativity is used to talk about “making something good”.

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Though “the entity to be valued” in this research project – social partnerships – is not a thing (and certainly not a tomato!), I choose to work with the “valuing”

framework (Heuts & Mol, 2013). First, I believe that this framework fits well with my research objective. I see the analysis of the valuing of tomatoes as an inspirational and productive way to shed light on and provide a nuanced description of how social partnerships are done in practice. Furthermore, I believe the focus on valuing as multiple inseparable activities is well aligned with Austin and Seitanidi’s description of valuation as not being a separate work stream in social partnerships.

Finally, and this is a more practical argument and also an argument of de-selection, the research setting that I work within and the data material that I have access to makes it practically possible to work with valuing registers, activities and tools as analytical categories. It would be more difficult for me to properly follow the actor(s) through relational processes of linking and de-linking in the way that Callon’s work calls for researchers to do.

The framework

In the analytical framework below (table 3.3), I translate the general research question - which was motivated by the empirical puzzle introduced in chapter 1 – into the analytical research question reflecting the theoretical “emplotment” of the analysis (Czarniawska, 2014, p. 125-127).

General research question:

If not based on a “clear case” or a unified understanding of value, then…:

How is corporate engagement in partnerships to resolve societal issues made worthwhile?

Analytical research question:

In indeterminate situations in corporate settings where there is uncertainty about value…:

How are worthwhile “social partnerships” performed?

I the analytical research question I use the term “social partnerships” (Waddock, 1989) to denote “corporate engagement in partnerships to resolve societal issues” as this is a commonly used term in the literature which studies the partnering phenomenon. Furthermore, inspired by John Dewey, I position corporate decisions about engagement in partnerships as indeterminate situations where value is in doubt. Finally, drawing on Heuts and Mol (2013), I have translated the

“performance of good tomatoes” into the “performance of worthwhile partnerships”. “Perform”, “performance” and “performativity” is used across a wide

range of scientific fields in different ways, but here, as I expand on in chapter 4, I use it in an ontological sense. More specifically, I use “perform” and

“performativity” in the way that Callon and Heuts and Mol use it to emphasise that markets, tomatoes and realities are made or done and that the actors (people, technical equipment, theories and so on) and activities involved in the making or the doing can, therefore, be described as being performative or having performative effects to varying degrees and in various ways⁴ (MacKenzie, 2007). Furthermore, it is important to point out that I use “perform” or “performance” only in relation to

“worthwhile partnerships” in the same way that Heuts and Mol only use the term in relation to “good tomatoes” as the undefined quality that valuing activities in various ways aims to achieve. As the analysis has a focus on describing these activities and less focus on the actual achievement of “worthwhile” or “good”, this also implies that I, as Heuts and Mol, do not use “perform” or “performative” very much in the analytical chapters. To describe the various, situational and continuous activities involved in valuing, I agree with Mol that it makes better sense to talk about “worth” or “value” being continuously enacted than “worth” or “value” being performed (Mol, 2002, p. 33). At this level of analysis, the advantage of “enact”

over “perform” is that it signals doing without revealing who the doer is and, in contrast to perform, it does so without connoting successful achievement (Mol, 2002, p. 32). In summary, I use perform and performance in an ontological sense and in relation to the achievement of worthwhile partnerships. To describe the valuing activities that may result in it being worthwhile investing in a partnership, I use “enact”.

Finally, in the research questions, I use a variation of “worth” - “worthwhile” – though I also use the term “value” throughout the thesis, not least because “value”

is widely used in the social partnership literature as well as in the empirical research setting. I do not refer to “worth” because I subscribe to Boltanski and Thévenot’s framework, but because I subscribe to the position that the distinction between

“value” and “values” in an economic and a non-economic sense is a false one. With reference to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, I define worthwhile as something being “worth doing or spending time, effort and money on”.

4 In a discussion of the performativity of economic theories, MacKenzie makes a distinction between “generic performativity” which indicates that an aspect of economics is used and

“effective performativity” which denotes a situation where the practical use of economics has an effect on economic processes. The latter can occur in two ways. Either the economic processes come to be more like (Barnesian performativity) or less like (counterperformativity) the theory (MacKenzie, 2007, p. 55)

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Valuing registers and valuing work

In table 3.3, I also present the analytical concepts and questions that I use to examine the performance of worthwhile partnership investments. I use the term

“valuing registers” as Heuts and Mol (2013) define it in their article. However, as they do not define it very clearly - and abstain from defining their terms as they do not wish to “legislate” how others should use them (p. 139) - I found it useful to explore the origins and meanings of “register”.

Like “value”, “register” is both a noun and a verb. According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, the noun – a register – has its roots in medieval Latin

“registrum” and late Latin “regesta” which means a “list of items (or matters) recorded”. In later usages, register can also refer to the device by which data is automatically recorded, for example, a cash register. It is used in several contexts.

Within printing it means “exact alignment of presswork”. In music, if refers to “the range of a human voice or a musical instrument” and “a series of tones of the same quality produced by a voice or an instrument”. Within linguistics it means “any of the varieties of a language that a speaker uses in a particular social context”.

According to etymonline.com, the verb – to register – has its roots in the Latin

“regere” which literally means “to carry or bring back”. In Old French, “registrer”

means to "note down, include". In contemporary English, to register has multiple meanings ranging from entering into a register or record, enrolling as a student or enrolling to vote, to express outward signs, to be in proper alignment and to make an impression (en.wikitionary.org).

Taking a closer look at Heuts and Mol’s (2013) text, they use register as a noun, but both in the meaning of “a list of what is recorded or included” and in the musical and linguistic sense as a range or a variety of nodes or language. When they refer to registers in the “list of what we record or include” sense, they talk about registers as

“axes along which goods and bads get mapped” (p. 128) that “indicate a shared relevance” (p. 129) or “single out a particular concern” (p. 140). However, valuing registers are also referred to in the musical sense as there are ranges of good and bad in relation to them depending on the situation and who is asked.

Further, I have taken the liberty of introducing a new term valuing work. I use this term to denote the variety of valuing activities conducted by humans and non-humans and to emphasise the ongoing efforts involved which Heuts and Mol, among others, describe through the notion of care. I am aware that “work” is also used in other theoretical contexts, for example in the body of literature on

“institutional work” (Lawrence et al., 2009) and the literature on identity work that was described in chapter 2. It is important to point out that my usage of “work” is not associated with these or any other theoretical perspectives on work. Rather, it is inspired by Helgesson and Muniesa (2014) who in a recent editorial draw attention to “valuation as (hard) work”. Using the example of a scientific article that receives

a “revise and resubmit” assessment, they argue that in a valuation as work perspective, the “revise and resubmit” message is not so much a postponement of a decision as a commitment to keep something in labour in a process of valuation – to keep it in “a zone of effort and care” (p. 2).

Finally, in the analytical questions, I have made one exception to the choice of working with Heuts and Mol’s framework by adding the question of identification and description that I borrow from Callon and Muniesa’s (2005) description of the calculation process. I have added this to the framework because “social partnerships” are clearly not as easily identifiable as a tomato. In fact, as the analysis will show, a “social partnership” is a phenomenon that in many ways defies identification and description. Though valuing as an umbrella concept embraces all the different types of activities that are involved in valuing, I found it relevant to remind myself to pay particular attention to this aspect in my analysis of valuing activities.

Table 3.3: Analytical framework

Research questions

General research question If not based on a “clear case” or a unified understanding of value, then…:

How is corporate engagement in partnerships to resolve societal issues made worthwhile?

Theoretical framework

Analytical question In indeterminate situations in corporate settings where there is uncertainty about value…:

How are worthwhile “social partnerships” performed?

Analytical concepts

Valuing registers What are the valuing registers in the research setting?

Are there any registers that are taken for granted?

What are the tensions within and between them and how are such tensions typically dealt with?

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Valuing work Which activities are involved in the performance of worthwhile partnerships?

 How is “value” enacted in the context of partnerships?

 How are partnerships identified and described?

 How are partnerships improved?

How are tensions within and between valuing registers dealt with in partnership investment decisions?

Who does the doing and which valuing tools are involved in the performance of worthwhile partnerships?

Which other “materialities and practicalities inform and co-shape” (Heuts & Mol, 2013, p. 141) the valuing of

“social partnerships”?

In the following chapter, I elaborate the ontological and epistemological position of the study and present the research design.