Who are we?
The IWGF is comprised of researchers from a range of disciplinary perspectives interested in financialization and the relations between firms, households and the capital market.
Within our group we have heterodox political economists, business and management researchers, cultural economists, geographers and sociologists. We also include non-academic practitioners from financial services and consultancy firms, plus regulators and others with more practical interests in financialization. Our working group has a distinctive international character, including members from Europe, North and South America, Australasia and Japan.
Overall our research interests are diverse, but the research activity of our members concentrates on (but is not limited to) four main subject areas:
i) Understanding the
nature, drivers and outcomes of financialization in terms of firm and household
behaviour,
ii) Examining the implications of financialization for national regimes of
accumulation, innovation and the international financial system.
iii) Exploring issues about the narrative and performative dimensions of shareholder
value, the new economy and what has come after
iv) Investigating the connection between financialization, increased inequality
and new kinds of social division and stratification.
What are our aims?
The working group was set up to establish network connections and dialogue between researchers in different disciplines and countries who did not meet regularly but had shared interests in financialization and could learn from each other. Thus our purpose is to create an interdisciplinary space where academic researchers interact, debate and share results without excluding a minority of non-academic practitioners and policy makers. The working group does not promote any one academic/disciplinary perspective or political orthodoxy, but facilitates debate and the exchange of ideas between researchers working in and between different disciplines and in different parts of the world.
How is the IWGF run?
The working group has been initiated by a small group of researchers based at the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio Cultural Change (Ismail Erturk, Julie Froud, Adam Leaver, Sukhdev Johal and Karel Williams) who are working on financialization with European colleagues as part of a European Framework 6 project. They are taking a lead during this start up phase but once the IWGF is up and running, the working group will elect an executive committee whose members reflect the international and academic constituency of its members. The first election will take place at the inaugural IWGF workshop in January 2007.
During this start up phase in 2005-6, all our activity is being organised from Manchester, UK, where Adam Leaver as secretary takes responsibility for circularising members, updating the web site etc. We will recruit volunteers to help Adam Leaver with organising our first workshop for January 2007.
What activities do we run?
The title 'working group' reflects our intention to organise an annual workshop or small scale conference as a core activity which encourages interaction and debate that shapes research agendas. We aim to hold the workshop/conference alternately in Europe and the Americas so as to bring together researchers from different disciplines and countries who seldom attend the same conferences.
We hope that in 2007 and subsequent years, the annual workshop could be organised to integrate with, or follow after, established existing conferences so as to save on members' time and travel costs.The decision as to which conference to piggy back would depend on the consent of the host conference organisers and the preferences of the IWGF membership..
Our inaugural conference will take place provisionally during January 2007 in London. Details about times, dates, speakers, venue etc can be found by clicking the 'Events' tab at the side.
What are our affiliations?
The IWGF will not aim to start its own journal but will have a relation with Competition and Change which is an established political economy journal edited by Julie Froud and Sukhdev Johal. This journal has already published papers on financialization and is prepared to consider themed special issues and individual papers.
IWGF will also have affiliate status with (a) GERPISA the French organised international network of researchers whose interests now go well beyond cars, and (b) CRESC, the ESRC funded Centre for Research on Socio Cultural Change at Manchester and the Open University in the UK. On this basis, Gerpisa's Yannick Lung and CRESC's Karel Williams would be co-opted onto the IWGF executive. These connections reflect the way in which the IWGF proposal grows out of discussion between European and American researchers at an EU funded workshop in Manchester under the Framework 6 ESEMK project in February 2005.
New affiliations could be established according to the interests of IWGF members. Any proposals for affiliation will be considered at an AGM held during the annual workshop.
Future developments
i) A Bibliography of financialization
The IWGF will compile a bibilography on financialization accessed from this web site as a useful resource for researchers, including post-graduate students. The bibliography will be put together from IWGF members' suggestions and will include the work of members and non-members. The founders of the IWGF will put together an initial list and will then welcome suggestions of references that should be added. These can be located under the 'Publications' link on the left.
ii) Unpublished work and working papers
The web site provides
a means of notifying IWGF members of new and forthcoming publications, reports,
working papers etc. Members who wish to use this facility should supply a
web link to a site where the paper could be downloaded (eg a working paper
that belongs to an institutional series, personal webpages, conference sites)
In each case, authors should also send a 200 word abstract of their current and forthcoming articles, working papers or books. For books, a brief table of contents would also be useful.
Members should email details of articles or books on financialization to the administrator of this site (admin@iwgf.org). These details will then be uploaded onto the IWGF website under either the 'Publications' link, or the IWGF Research link. All abstracts and summaries will be uploaded provided they do not exceed our word limits and meet a broad test of relevance to the study of financialization.