Publishing without editors or authors? Competing logics, circulation, and cultural creation in a publishing firm

Abstract

Abstract Two contradictory logics have historically been present in the publishing field ( Thornton, 2002 ): editorial logic and market logic. Based on a qualitative case study within the French publishing sector, our study demonstrates accounting’s colonization of the editorial process. Specifically, we explore the effects of the income statement on shaping the publication of a collection of children’s books. Our study shows that previous traditional editorial logic is marginalized and that the controller has become the key actor in giving an account of the creative process. Moreover, we also note the performative effects of the income statement on actors and their understanding of the creative process. Our case study explains how the widespread use of accounting technologies in this context is sustained by a market logic that it in turn sustains and strengthens.