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I am an Associate Professor (with tenure) belonging to the Sustainability and Managerial Accounting and Control groups at the Ivey Business School. This cross-disciplinary appointment reflects my research and teaching. I aspire to push the boundaries of knowledge and practice by investigating how fashioning new devices and collective actions can help transform financial markets toward sustainability.
Over the years, I have studied the emergence of biodiversity finance, responsible investing, impact assessment, integrated reporting, and alternative currencies. My work in this area has won me several academic, teaching, and professional prizes. As an ethnographer, I enjoy doing field research and sharing my experience with students and practitioners. I published my work, Chains of Finance: How Investment Management is Shaped, at Oxford University Press and in major academic journals across various disciplines.
I founded and have led the Sustainable Finance Lab at the Centre for Building Sustainable Value. I am currently working on an extensive research program on biodiversity finance, aiming to channel capital towards protecting ecosystems, notably through conservation impact bonds. I also work extensively on economic reconciliation with Indigenous peoples in Canada and regenerative agriculture. Through collaboration with Indigenous nations, I aim to support the weaving of Indigenous and Western knowledge into academic practices, developing innovative approaches to research and teaching.
I strongly believe in the benefits of multimodal research, and I have collaborated with artists on joint scholarly contributions. I am currently leading a short documentary on the Deshkan Ziibi Conservation Impact Bond. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I initiated and led an interdisciplinary, multimedia, and multilingual project, Breaking Boundaries. This project aimed to offer a lasting record of collective and individual experiences during the lockdown and its aftermath. By bringing together diverse perspectives, this project contributes to establishing the accounting discipline’s role in recording critical moments in our global history.
A selection of my research awards include:
2024. “Highly Commended” in the 2023 Reg Mathews Memorial Prize, a paper published in the journal considered to have made the most significant contribution towards the social and environmental accounting literature for The Motivations and Practices of Impact Assessment in Socially Responsible Investing: The French Case and its Implications for the Accounting and Impact Investing Communities, Social and Environmental Accounting Journal, 43(1):1-29 (with Chollet P., Crifo P., and Mottis N)
2022. “Climate Leadership Award” by the Finance for the Future Awards recognizes the organizations and individuals supporting the integration of sustainability into financial decision-making for the community-based participatory researchDeshkan Ziibi Conservation Impact Bond.
2020.Best paper award in the category "Covid-19," XX USP International Conference in Accounting for "What trees taught me about Covid-19: On relational accounting and other magic."
Links to my scholarly contributions are available in my CV.
Teaching
HBA2: Corporations&Society – Sustainable Finance
HBA2: Assessing the Broader Impact of Business
MBA: Sustainable Finance – Building the Business of the 21st Century
Education
PhD, ESSEC Business School & University Paris Ouest Nanterre la Defense
MBA & MSc in Management, ESSEC Business School
MPhil in Organizational Theory, University Paris Ouest Nanterre la Defense
Abstract: This essay engages with the mounting published criticism of neo-institutionalism, but from the point of view of the institutional logical approach, one of its descendants. By addressing each of the main critiques: (1) institutional logical theory is tautological; (2) everything is institutional; (3) the absence of politics and power, and (4) its lack of a critical theory - the essay attempts to think how to build a theoretical apparatus able to engage with the current institutional crises of the world.
Abstract: This essay is an encounter between an artist creating characters for video games and an academic studying how people and things are being financialized. Exchanging about the appearance of NFTs and cryptocurrencies – technologies associated with Web 3.0. in the video game industry, the academic and the artist reflect on the place of playfulness, creation, and finance in our society. They observe that most North American and European players resisted NFTs and cryptocurrencies, while more Asian-Pacific ones embraced the latter. They conclude that those reactions were explained by the fact that gamers perceived cryptocurrencies and NFTs as institutional objects associated with a financial logic, whose presence threatened the gaming logic. Reassured by the fact that the Web 3.0. society will probably still embrace playfulness and an imaginary world outside capitalism; they still wonder what the long-term prospects of the Web 3.0. society will be, financialization might come in disguise. As pragmatic friends, they nevertheless tried to issue an NFT by publishing this essay and its accompanying artwork, a “Crow Queen” on a blockchain. Time will tell if the Web 3.0. society will praise this new form of digital joint academic/art production.
Abstract: The dominant global capitalist economic model harms ecosystems and humxn populations. In attempting to reduce these harms, its linear foundational elements characterised by rapid production, mass consumption, and ineffective disposal necessitate a shift to more circular approaches. Embracing circularity is complex and requires several elements in addition to shifting business approaches such as redefining value, discarding traditional competitive practices in favour of collaboration, and developing appropriate tools for analysis. Given both its ubiquitous role in business and its ability to facilitate change, it appears a natural extension for accounting to serve an essential function in the circular transition. With this in mind, this editorial serves a twofold purpose. It first introduces the present special issue on ?Accounting for the Circular Economy? and contextualises the circular economy concept. Secondly, it relies on insights from interviews with circular economy experts to propose a grassroots agenda for accounting within the circular economy context. Given the pressing need to address environmental and social challenges, we hope this editorial and the articles published in the special issue will spark further research and practical transformations toward a more regenerative and just economic and social system.
Abstract: Purpose
This article seeks to unravel the mechanisms through which financial actors agreed upon a sustainability accounting standard without financializing social and environmental issues, i.e., assigning a monetary value to sustainability.
Design/Methodology/Approach
The article examines the Reporting and Assessment Framework created by the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UN-PRI), the leading reporting sustainability framework in the asset management industry. It relies on a longitudinal case study that draws upon interviews, participant observation, and archival data.
Findings
The article demonstrates that the conception of the framework was a funnelling process of sustainability valuation comprising two co-constituted mechanisms: a process of valorization – judging what is deemed of value – and a process of evaluation – agreeing on how to assess value. This valuation process unfolded by creating the framework, thanks to two enabling conditions: the creation of non-prescriptive evaluative criteria that avoided financialization and the valuation support of an enabling organization.
Originality/Value
The article helps understand how an industry can encompass the diversity of motives and practices associated with the adoption of sustainability by its economic actors while suggesting a common framework to report on and assess those practices. It uncovers alternatives to the financialization process of sustainability accounting standards. The article also offers insights into the advantages and inconveniences of such a framework. The article enriches the literature in the sociology of valuation, financialization, and sustainability accounting.
Abstract: ABSTRACT The current biodiversity loss is dramatic. Over the past 50 years, more than 68% of the mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish on Earth have disappeared, putting the planet's survival and its inhabitants—including human beings—at risk. Financialization, or the transformation of nature into financial assets, is increasingly proposed as a solution to the biodiversity crisis. Proponents of financialization believe that assigning a monetary value to nature will incentivize human beings to protect habitats and their species. This article offers a four‐mechanism model of nature's financialization, explaining why it is virtually impossible to financialize nature. We collected data through a unique two‐stage data collection process, including a single case study and additional interviews with conservationists and conservation finance specialists. We analyzed the development of a calculative device, the “Index,” designed to assess the impact of conservation efforts on the survival of endangered species. Conservationists hoped to use the Index to calculate the financial return of a conservation impact bond, a financial instrument designed to finance conservation projects. However, they did not achieve their goal. We discuss the implications for the financialization and conservation literature and the role of accounting therein. We notably question previous accounts of financialization, including the need for financial numbers or financial actors. We ultimately show that a financialization project can transform practices toward financialization, even if the financialization process is not complete. RÉSUMÉ La financiarisation peut‐elle sauver la nature? Le cas des espèces en voie de disparition À l'heure actuelle, la perte de biodiversité est dramatique. Au cours des 50 dernières années, plus de 68 % des mammifères, oiseaux, amphibiens, reptiles et poissons ont disparu de la surface de la Terre, ce qui pose un risque pour la survie de la planète et de ses habitants, y compris les êtres humains. La financiarisation, ou transformation des éléments naturels en actifs financiers, est de plus en plus souvent proposée en guise de solution à la dégradation de la biodiversité. Les tenants de la financiarisation sont d'avis que l'attribution d'une valeur monétaire à la nature incitera les humains à protéger les habitats et les espèces qui y vivent. Le présent article propose un modèle de financiarisation de la nature constitué de quatre mécanismes et explique pourquoi il est pratiquement impossible de financiariser les éléments naturels. Nous avons recueilli des données dans le cadre d'un processus de collecte en deux étapes unique, soit une étude de cas et des entrevues additionnelles avec des conservationnistes et des spécialistes du financement de la conservation. Nous avons analysé l'élaboration d'un dispositif de calcul, appelé l'« Index », qui est conçu pour évaluer les répercussions des efforts de conservation sur la survie des espèces en voie de disparition. Les conservationnistes espéraient utiliser l'Index pour déterminer le rendement financier des obligations à impact de conservation (CIB), un instrument financier conçu pour soutenir les projets de conservation. Toutefois, ils n'ont pas atteint leur objectif. Nous examinons ici les implications sur la littérature sur la financiarisation et la conservation, ainsi que le rôle qu'y joue la comptabilité. Nous remettons en question les tentatives antérieures de financiarisation, y compris la nécessité de recourir à des données financières ou à des acteurs financiers. En fin de compte, nous montrons qu'un projet de financiarisation peut intégrer des aspects de financiarisation aux pratiques, même si le processus de financiarisation n'est pas terminé.
Abstract: All business contributes to environmental crises because of its focus on profit. We argue that international business (IB) contributes more than its fair share. IB's focus on cross-border arbitrage has led to the over-extraction of natural resources and the accumulation of waste. This is a problem, because natural resources are limited in quantity and embedded in their local environment. It is time for IB researchers to step up and substantially and meaningfully address IB’s contribution to environmental crises by embracing the principles of natural systems processes within its core assumptions and improving its theorizing of natural resources. In this paper, we take a step forward in this direction by revisiting and refining the theoretical dimensions of country-specific advantages (CSAs) and firm-specific advantages (FSAs) to recognize natural resources more explicitly. We propose three natural resource-based strategies for multinational enterprises (MNEs): reducing, replacing, and regenerating. This article offers a new theoretical perspective to understand how IB can create value and steward the natural environment, contributing to the sustainability of business, society, and the planet.
Abstract: This research note elaborates on the impact assessment practices of the French Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) industry. The research was conducted by the Scientific Committee of the French public SRI label based on interviews, participative observation, a survey, and documentary evidence. SRI is usually distinguished from impact investing in terms of investors’ different intentions (contributing to sustainable development in a financially savvy way for SRI vs. demonstrating a societal impact for impact investing). We show that, beyond this distinction, the meanings and motivations behind impact assessment in the SRI community are broadly different from impact assessment practices in impact investing, creating a distance between the two communities. In fact, little is known about impact assessment practices in SRI, despite the market power of this asset class. We address this shortcoming by investigating 1) who is interested in impact assessment in the SRI industry, 2) why SRI investors want impact assessment, and 3) what impact assessment looks like in the SRI industry. We develop this analysis to suggest areas of concern and opportunities for the SRI, impact investing, and accounting communities. SRI investors’ recent appropriation of impact assessment indicates that the three communities’ interests and success will increasingly be linked to one another. The topic therefore warrants investigation.
Abstract: While the world was on lock down, human beings started craving for green spaces. As they walked amidst the trees, trees began to talk to them. The surprising truth then emerged: There were actually secrets to be shared by the forest. This essay reflects on the teachings offered by nature(s) during the pandemic. Based on a personal encounter with a river, it caresses the relationships that have connected humans to non-humans over time and that have led to make this confinement both a unique and universal experience. It suggests embracing relational accounting, the expression of our relationships with each other and our ecosystems, as a way to collectively celebrate life and mourn death, thus honoring the generations that came before us and welcoming those who will we come after us. In doing so, the essay hopes to contribute to the field of accounting by offering an instantiation of what a poetic and Indigenous account of our world could look like.
Abstract: This article aims to change the terms of the conversation about the ecological crisis. We argue that the human-nature dualism, a product of Enlightenment thought and primarily responsible for the ecological crisis, cannot be the basis for any meaningful solutions. We show how more recent Western imaginaries like the Anthropocene and Gaia proposed to overcome the separation of nature from culture are also based on exclusions that reflect Enlightenment rationality and legacies of colonialism. In sharp contrast, we show that Indigenous philosophies that preceded the Enlightenment by thousands of years have developed systems of knowledge based on a relational ontology that reflects profound connections between humans and nature. We demonstrate that such forms of knowledge have been systematically subjugated by Western scholarship based on arguments inspired by Enlightenment ideals of rationality and empiricism. A decolonial imagination will be able to generate new insights into understanding and addressing the ecological crisis. We therefore call for organization and management scholars to challenge the anthropomorphic biases and the economism that dominates our field through a respectful engagement with Indigenous worldviews.
Alawattage, C.; Arjaliès, D-L.; Barrett, M.; Bernard, J.; de Castro Casa Nova, S. P.; Cho, C. H.; Cooper, C.; Denedo, M.; D’Astros, C. D.; Evans, R., et al., 2021, "Opening accounting: a Manifesto", Accounting Forum, July 45(3): 227 - 246.
Abstract: This Manifesto emanates from our collective desire to speak out and stand up for those voices our scholarship system has systematically silenced. We wish to highlight and honour all who have been marginalised and sidelined, who are often ignored or overlooked. We implore the accounting academic community to expand its focus to issues of significant importance, recognising inequities and our complacency, or worse, our perpetuation of said oppression. We want to support, co-struggle with, develop community accountability for, and create a prominent space for the voices of those individuals who do not identify with the White, middle-class, able-bodied, Westernized-educated, heteronormative hegemony saturating academic publications. We hope our academic activism will facilitate the publication and active listening for viewpoints that the dominant forms of power have methodically subjugated. We do not suggest that this Manifesto is exhaustive, nor that we discussed each area thoroughly. We can only hope that those reading this Manifesto will contribute in ways that we have not directly imagined or described. What we offer is only an initial starting point for a much deeper, representative, ambitious, and reflective path forward.
Abstract: This paper explores the role of institutional objects in the constitution of institutional logics. Institutional objects depend for their objectivity on the goods produced through those objects, such as economic models, passports or sacred texts. We theorize institutional logics as grammars of valuation that institutionalize goods through institutional objects. We identify four value moments through which goods are objectified: institution, the instituting of a good, a belief and an imagination of its objective goodness; production, how the good is produced, what practices are productive of the good; evaluation, how good is the good, the practices and objects through which worth in terms of that good is determined, and territorialization, the domain of reference of the good, to what objects and practices a good can and does refer in its instantiations. We assess the adequacy of our model through an institutional object based on the good of “market value” - i.e. an options pricing model. We discuss the implications of these findings for institutional logical theory and the sociology of valuation.
Abstract: Product categories are more than classification devices that organize markets; when reflecting market actors' purposes, they are also judgment devices. Taking stock of the literature on product categories and drawing on the distinction between the faculties of knowing and judging, we elaborate a framework that accounts for how and why market actors include or exclude normative attributes in a product category definition. Based on a field study of the development of Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) funds in France, we describe the phases and conditions of a judgment framework for category definition, for both established and nascent categories. We discuss implications for research on product categories and the workings of markets more broadly.
Abstract: Purpose: This paper analyzes the process through which an IIRC (International Integrated Reporting Council) pilot company adopted "integrated reporting" (IR), a management innovation that merges financial and non-financial reporting. brbr Designmethodologyapproach: We use a seven-year longitudinal ethnographic study based on semi-structured interviews, observations, and documentary evidence to analyze this multinational company's IR adoption process from its decision to become an IIRC pilot organization to the publication of its first integrated report. brbr Findings: We demonstrate that the company envisioned IR as a "rational myth" (Hatchuel, 1998 Hatchuel and Weil, 1992). This conceptualization acted as a springboard for IR adoption, with the mythical dimension residing in the promise that IR had the potential to portray global performance in light of the company's own foundational myth. The company challenged the vision of IR suggested by the IIRC to stay true to its conceptualization of IR and eventually chose to implement its own version of an integrated report. brbr Originalityvalue: We enrich previous research on integrated reporting and management innovations by showing how important it is for organizations to acknowledge the mythical dimension of the management innovations they pursue to support their adoption processes. Based on these findings, we argue that myths can play a productive role in transforming business (reporting) practices. We also identify some transition conditions that make this transformation possible and discuss the implications of these results for the future of IR, sustainability and accounting more broadly.
Abstract: Investment managers use financial numbers to assess the quality of their portfolios, which requires them to estimate the market value of their assetsi.e., the priced exchange for which such assets could be traded. Prior research has shown that investment managers are likely to disregard information that does not easily integrate into such analysis, such as environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria. We undertook a three-year ethnography of an asset management company to better understand how investment managers respond to ESG criteria. We found that fixed-income investment managers attempted to include ESG criteria in their financial models by financializing the data, so that the information commensurated with their existing models. Equity investment managers, on the other hand, did not financialize ESG issues, but introduced the use of visuals, specifically emojis, to incarnate ESG issues, so that the equity managers could juxtapose ESG criteria with financial criteria. In doing so, they created a sense of dissonance between financial numbers and the visuals, which fostered creative friction. The equity managers were thus able to analyze the ESG criteria not only for their financial insights but also to retain some of the social and environmental information that could not be financialized. We discuss the implications of these findings for the research on financialization and calculative devices.
Abstract: On Justification: Economies of Worth (Boltanski & Thévenot, 19912006) was a synthetic and comprehensive parsing of common goods, goods that could and had to be justified in public. In response to Bourdieu’s critical sociology, they rather provided a robust and disciplined sociology of critique, the situated requirements of justification. They refused power and violence as integral to the operability of justification. They emphasized the ways in which conventions of worth afforded coordination, not their constitution of or by domination. They refused to make either capitalism, or the state, into primary motors of social order. Indeed, they refused social sphere, structure, or group as the ground of the good. They emphasized the cognitive capacities of agents. There was no passion, no desire, no bodily affect in these justified worlds. There wasn’t even any account of production of value, of children, or of money. And while they recognized the metaphysical aspect of the good and even used Christianity as a template for one of their cités, they rigorously excluded religion. The theory was designed to analyze moments of controversy, not quiescence or quietude. In his subsequent work, Boltanski aimed to address these absences. In this essay, we examine how Boltanski sought to restore love, violence, religion, production, and institution across five texts: Love and Justice as Competences (19902012), The New Spirit of Capitalism, co-authored with Eve Chiapello (19992007), The Foetal Condition: A Sociology of Engendering and Abortion (20042013), On Critique: A Sociology of Emancipation (20092011), and La Collection, Une Forme Neuve du Capitalisme La Mise en Valeur Economique du Passé et ses Effets (2014) co-authored with Arnaud Esquerre.
2024 “Highly Commended” in the 2023 Reg Mathews Memorial Prize
2024 Research Merit Award
2022 Climate Leadership Award
2020 Best paper award in the category "Covid-19," XX USP International Conference in Accounting for "What trees taught me about Covid-19: On relational accounting and other magic," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Forthcoming."
2019 "Highly Commended" in the 2018 Mary Parker Follett Award competition (3 best papers published in the journal for the year) for "Integrated reporting, it's like God, no, one met him but everybody talks about him": The power of myths in the adoption of management innovations, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 31, 5: 1349-1380 (with D. Gibassier and M. Rodrigue)
2018 Best Paper Award, Established Scholar Category, CSEAR North America, for “Can Accounting Save Nature(s)? The Case of Endangered Species” (with D. Gibassier)
2018 Most cited paper in Management Accounting Research since 2013 (extract from Scopus) for "The use of management control systems to formulate and implement CSR strategy: A levers of control perspective, Management Accounting Research, 24(4): 284-300" (with J. Mundy)
2017 Best International Paper in Social Issues in Management, Academy of Management, nominated for the Carolyn Dexter Award (all academy award), for “Product Categories as Judgment Devices: The Moral Awakening of the Investment Industry”
2016-now: Appointed by the French Ministry for Finance and Economy to the Scientific Committee of the “Socially Responsible Investment” (SRI) Label.
2016-now: Board Member “Independent Expert” of the French Social Investment Forum.
2012-now: Member and President of the jury of the academic prize of the FIR-PRI - Principles of Responsible Investment (UNEP Finance Initiative).
2014 nominated for the Syntec management consulting best article award in the category “Management / Human Resources / Organization” for ‘Arjaliès, D-L., & Mundy J. (2013), The Use of Management Control Systems to Formulate and Implement CSR Strategy: A Levers of Control Perspective, Management Accounting Research, 24(4): 284-300’.
2012 nominated for the Syntec management consulting best article award in the category “Management / Human Resources / Organization” for ‘Arjaliès, D-L., Goubet C. & Ponssard, J-P. (2011). Approches stratégiques des émissions CO2: Les cas de l’industrie cimentière et de l’industrie chimique, Revue Française de Gestion, 2011, 6(215): 123-146’. Translated in English in June 2013
2011 Best Thesis Award European FIR-PRI (French Socially Responsible Investment Forum & Principles for Responsible Investment) €5,000
2011 Highly Commendable dissertation in the EFMD Emerald 2011 Outstanding Doctoral Research Awards in the Interdisciplinary Accounting Research (category sponsored by the Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal).
2011 Second prize in the European EDAMBA (European Doctoral Programmes Association in Management and Business Administration) Thesis Competition (€1,500). Others
Experience
2006-2009 - RI Analyst, Macif Gestion (Asset Management Company), France.
2004-2005 - Social Economy Operations Manager, Macif (Private Mutual Insurance), France.
2003 - Deputy Project Manager, Companieros (Ethical Educational Programs), France.
