Good news! The LSE is launching a new executive summer course in the sociology of finance.
The course, titled “Culture, Networks and Performance,” is a first of its kind. For the first time, an academic program is putting to use the award-winning concepts of the sociology of finance –market devices, embeddedness, performativity– to give professionals in finance an advantage in trading, banking or risk management.
This course is premised on one simple idea: that there is a new and distinctive way to think sociologically about financial markets. Different from orthodox economics and its emphasis on rational choice. Different as well from behavioral finance and its focus on individuals and mistakes (or “biases”). The sociology of finance incorporates technology like formulae and machines in our understanding of markets. It conceptualizes markets as controversies, where there is often no right and wrong. It explains why management, culture, practice, are critically important to the calculative processes of a bank. And it provides a balanced take on markets – in between the “markets always get it right” approach from economics, and the “this is how people get it wrong” from behavioral finance.
Participants can expect to:
- Understand the relational aspects of finance
- Acquire skills to manage the culture of financial firms
- Understand the impact of technology on financial markets
- Discover the limits of economic and financial models
- Explore the ways in which by financial communication shapes value
The course is organized by Nina Andreeva and Daniel Beunza. But the instructors will include a broad set of heavyweights from the LSE, including Michael Power (LSE Accounting), Paul Willman (LSE Management), Jean Pierre Zigrand (LSE Finance) and Juan Pablo Pardo-Guerra (LSE Sociology).
For more information, dates and a longer description, see here. And for even more information, just drop Daniel Beunza a line at d.beunza@lse.ac.uk
