The IASB and the market “communion”

Abstract

Since the 1970s, accountants are suspected for having been contributing to the predominance of the market doctrine by setting themselves the objective of ensuring the efficient functioning of financial markets. In this chapter, we set out to analyze how the IASB project accords with this logic. Using the concept of "communion" borrowed to Gurvitch sociology of law (1948/2001), and some shareholder thinking lent to Stout (The shareholder value myth. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 2012) and Blair and Stout (Va Law Rev 85(2):247-328, 1999), we argue that the concept of "investor" used in the IASB conceptual framework depicts its membership to a form of an active spontaneous sociality we call the market "communion". Through its conceptual framework, the IASB contributes to preserving symbols and patterns, such as the Efficient Market Hypothesis [EMH] and the Shareholder Value Maximization [SVM] doctrine. Poised for intellectual collapse, such shared symbols and beliefs form the collective intuitions that enable mediation and communication between the members of the communion to continue adulating the market ideology. The concept of "investor" used in the IASB conceptual framework is socially constructed. It is both constituted by the IASB membership to the market communion, and yet at the same time is the very medium of this constitution.