Counting, Control and Calculation
Reflections on Measuring and Management
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5790409 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Michael Power (0000-0001-8148-3953, ESRC Centre for the Analysis of Risk and Regulation (CARR) at the London School of Economics, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2004 |
| Volume | 57 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 765-783 |
| Publication date | 2004-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Human Relations (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0018-7267 • E-ISSN: 1741-282X |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0018726704044955 |
| OpenAlex | W2112716461 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 113 |
| References cited | 34 |
This article explores fundamental issues in performance measurement systems broadly conceived. Three key moments or themes are identified. First, the foundations of measurement in counting practices, and their inherent reductionism, are considered. Second, the relations between measurement and technologies of monitoring and control, such as auditing, are discussed. Third, first- and second-order measurement (meta-measurement) are distinguished, respectively as particular institutions of counting and data production, and as related dense networks of calculating experts operating on these numbers within specific cultures of objectivity. Finally, arguments about the consequences of performance measurement systems are evaluated, contrasting democratic enthusiasm for performance measurement control technologies with the view that they are some kind of 'fatal remedy'. In place of a simple dichotomy of trust or distrust in numbers, the development of performance measurement instruments is argued to be a cycle of innovation, crisis and reform, which continually expands into new regions of social and economic life, and which expresses varying degrees of commitment to precision
Distrust · Objectivity (philosophy · Accounting and Organizational Management
Database
Stakeholder Engagement
Évaluer et valoriser
Retroaction
“Making up” user voice
New Perspectives on Old Pasts? Diversity in Popular Digital Games with Historical Settings
Evidence of teaching practice in an age of accountability
How Culture Displaced Structural Reform
Just Look at the Numbers
Reading cases of local quality of life assessment as incomplete and socio-politically contentious practices
Kaleidoscopic collegiality and the use of performance research metrics. The case of French universities
The Seduction of Hyper-Surveillance
Taxonomic Government
Sustainable city rankings, benchmarking and indexes
Technology, knowledge, governance
A Critical Realist Approach To Institutional Entrepreneurship
Management of human capital
Welterzeugung durch Zahlen Modelle politischer Differenzierung in internationalen Statistiken, 1948-2010
Strategic management accounting in the public sector context
Rankings for smart city dialogue? Opening up a critical scrutiny
Die Kalkulation der Gesellschaft
Einleitung
Zahlen, Wissen, Objektivität
Numerische Differenz. Überlegungen zu einer Soziologie des (quantitativen) Vergleichs / Numerical Difference. Toward a Sociology of (Quantitative) Comparisons
Measuring Justice
“Yo cuento en este cuento”
Disinformation as Quasi-Object
‘Drilling down’ and ‘breaking glass’ – Evolving notions of public service ‘quality’ in the Norwegian health data space
Quantifier les qualités
Forty-two
A genealogy of epidemiological reason
Understanding reasons for and strategic responses to administrative health data misreporting in an Indian state
Child Protection and the Municipal Budget
Social Work on the Whiteboard
Performance is political
Chief Executives and the Modernization of the English National Health Service
Empowerment for individual agency
In the service of God and the parish
Constructing world society
Enacting the Millennium Development Goals
Ambiguous publicities
The ‘logic of escalation’ in performance measurement
The power of performance indices in the global politics of anti-corruption
Social policy by numbers. How international organisations construct global policy proposals
Governing global challenges through quantified futures
Methodological challenges in developing an evidence base, and realising rights
International Organisations and the Proliferation of Scientised Global Reporting, 1947–2019
States of White Ignorance, and Audit Masculinity in English Higher Education
My School, Education, and Cultures of Rating and Ranking
Introduction
The rise of managerialism in international NGOs
Service delivery under translation
Wie entstehen Preise
The World Bank and Education
On a mission”
Trust and invigilation
Elastic numbers
Gap talk’ and the global rescaling of educational accountability in Canada
The paradox of the education race
Rubbing against data infrastructure(s)
Enabling or Disabling? Reflections on the Ethiopian National Wash Inventory Process
Accounting for what and to whom? Accountability tensions in collaborations addressing long‐term unemployment
Repositioning prevention in child protection using performance indicators
Developmentalities and Calculative Practices
Financialisation, the valuation of investment property and the urban built environment in the UK
The Rise of Scientific Virtues in the Danish Central Administration
Constructing Accountability
Drowning the Deadweight in the Rhetoric of Economism
The Role of External Inspection in the Public Services
The Challenge of Quantification
The ‘Economy of Memory’
Dienstleister der Finanzialisierung
Building legitimacy at Sport Canada
The Rise of Scientific Virtues in the Danish Central Administration
Hacking work
From resistance and control to normative orders
Data, Detection, and the Redistribution of the Sensible in International Law
Network time for the European Higher Education Area
Foucault, governing and knowledge
Governance Interface
Numerical operations, transparency illusions and the datafication of governance
Effective
The mobilisers
Understanding institutional conversion
Mesurer le « développement durable » pour aider à le réaliser
Bureaucracy, neoliberalism and perversion
Performance Measurement and Accounting
Competition in the Wild
Decision Theory as Practice
The politics of transparency and the calibration of knowledge in the digital age
Governing failure
Accounting for the social
Constructing and re-constructing narratives of patient safety
Governing by narratives
Sociological refigurations of patient safety; ontologies of improvement and 'acting with' quality collaboratives in healthcare
Measure for measure? Commensuration, commodification, and metrology in emissions markets and beyond
Immaculate Defecation
When reactivity fails
Evaluations as value-measurement links
Est-il bon, est-il méchant? Le rôle du nombre dans le gouvernement de la cité néolibérale
The measure of reality
The emergence of probability
The Politics of Large Numbers
The Audit Society
The Taming of Chance
Measures and Men
The System of Professions
The Calculating Forester
The Quantifying Spirit in the Eighteenth Century
Introductory Essay
Sorting Things Out
The politics of brand accounting in the United Kingdom
Inventing Accuracy
The Order of Things
Trust in Numbers
Improving ratings’
How institutions think
Making Measuring Instruments
Inventing accuracy
Fatal Remedies
| Unique citing works | 113 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 5,38 |
| Citation span | 2005 - 2026 (22) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 113 |