Representing and Performing Businesses

Abstract

This article investigates a segmentation model used by the Danish Tax and Customs Administration to classify businesses' motivational postures. The article uses two different conceptualisations of performativity to analyse what the model's segmentations do: Hacking's notion of making up people and MacKenzie's idea of performativity. Based on these two approaches, the article demonstrates that the segmentation model represents and performs the businesses as it makes up certain new ways to be a business and as the businesses can be seen as moving targets. Inspired by MacKenzie the argument is that the segmentation model embodies cleverness in that it simultaneously alters what it represents and then represents this altered reality to confirm the accuracy of its own model of the businesses' postures. Despite the cleverness of the model, it also has a blind spot. The model assumes a world wherein everything around it is in motion and can be shaped, however, it sees itself as stable. This assumption turns out to be problematic as the tax administration questions the model's ability to produce valid comparisons. The article presents a detailed analysis of the model's performativity, providing an example of a performativity study whose methodology differs from the methodological criteria set up by MacKenzie.

KEYWORDS:

• performativity
• segmentation
• representing
• model
• tax administration

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Research for this article was partly funded by the Danish Tax and Customs Administration. I wish to thank the tax administration for this research support and for their kindness in helping me to gain access to materials. I also wish to thank warmly the informants who took their time to talk to me about their experiences with the Danish Tax and Customs Administration.

Notes

1. In general, MacKenzie operates within the broader field of the social studies of finance (e.g. Callon 1998, 2007; Callon, Millo & Muniesa 2007; Callon & Muniesa 2005; Cochoy, Giraudeau & McFall 2010; Hardie & MacKenzie 2007).

2. The material referenced in this article comprises 12 explorative interviews with business owners or bookkeepers and six interviews with the external consultants for six of these businesses. The official documents this article relies on include written material such as reports, notes and PowerPoint slides from SKAT describing the model. Finally, this article draws on scholarly literature on the segmentation model that primarily refers to John and Valerie Braithwaite's research.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Karen Boll

Karen Boll is Post.Doc researcher at Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. Her current research interests revolve around how organisational theory and devices are used in and shape organisational realities. Her fieldwork mainly takes place in public organisations focusing specifically on economic regulation within the field of taxation. Karen is affiliated with the What Makes Organisation? research programme at Copenhagen Business School.