Martin Giraudeau

BIO

Martin Giraudeau is a sociologist and historian of accounting, organisations, and capitalism. His work draws on methods from the sociology and history of science and technology, which he applies to the sciences and technologies of business, so as to explain their historical emergence as well as the evolutions of their roles in organizations and the economy since the early-modern period.

Martin has conducted extensive empirical research on the rise of entrepreneurship over the past two and a half centuries, with a specific focus on the evolving forms and uses of business plans. He is currently completing two books on the topic: one on the shift in business planning methods that can be observed in the so-called age of revolutions, centred on the case of the founding of the DuPont de Nemours corporation; the other on the rise of entrepreneurship as an industry, and of business plans as a standardized technology of the future, since the mid-20th century. He has, in parallel, expanded his empirical focus to the study of projects beyond entrepreneurship, as well as to the role of records and record-keeping in the management of business continuity.

Publications

• Giraudeau, Martin & Graber, Frédéric (2019), Le seuil de l’action. La décision préalable dans l’histoire des projets, Entreprises et Histoire 97(4): 40-57 https://hal-sciencespo.archives-ouvertes.fr/CSO/hal-02959988
• Giraudeau, Martin (2019), The Predestination of Capital: Projecting the Dupont de Nemours Company into the New World, Critical Historical Studies 6(1): 33-62 https://hal-sciencespo.archives-ouvertes.fr/CSO/hal-02128295
• Giraudeau, Martin (2018), Proving Future Profit: Business Plans as Demonstration Devices, Osiris 33(1): 130-148 https://hal-sciencespo.archives-ouvertes.fr/CSO/hal-01917431
• Giraudeau, Martin & Graber, Frédéric (Éds.) (2018), Les Projets: une histoire politique (17e-21e siècles), Paris: Presses des Mines https://hal-sciencespo.archives-ouvertes.fr/CSO/hal-01917421
• Giraudeau, Martin (2018), Processing the Future: Venture Evaluation at American Research and Development Corporation (1946-1973), in Beckert, Jens & Bronk, Richard, Uncertain Futures: Imaginaries, Narratives and Calculation in the Economy, Oxford: Oxford University Press: 259-277 https://hal-sciencespo.archives-ouvertes.fr/CSO/hal-02130928

All publications

TEACHING ACTIVITIES

Sciences Po, Department of Sociology (2018 - present) 

• History of Capitalism (graduate programme)
• The World of Entrepreneurship (graduate programme)
• Innovation in Accounting (graduate programme)
• Historical Sociology of Capitalism (undergraduate programme)
• Sciences and Societies (undergraduate programme)
• Experimenting with Covid-19 (undergraduate programme)

Former Positions

• Assistant Professor at the Department of Accounting, London School of Economics & Political Science (2011 - 2018)
• Faculty Fellow at the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, Harvard University (2015 - 2016)
• Visiting Professor at the Science, Technology and Society Center, European University in Saint Petersburg (2013 - 2014)
• LSE Fellow at the Department of Accounting, London School of Economics & Political Science (2009 - 2011)
• Teaching Fellow at the University of Toulouse (2004 - 2009)
• Fulbright Fellow at the Program in Science, Technology and Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Fall 2008)
• Visiting Scholar at the Fundação Getulio Vargas’s Sao Paulo School of Business Administration (Fall 2005)

OTHER ACTIVITIES

• Associate Editor of Valuation Studies (2014 - present)
• Reviewer for academic journals and presses in Sociology, History, Management, Accounting, and Ethnography

EDUCATION

2022
Habilitation à diriger des Recherches:
Dissertation title: "Scripted Enterprise : The Textual Foundation of the DuPont Corporation".
Committee: Patrick Castel, Jonathan Levy, Andrea Mennicken, Alain Pottage, Susan Zieger (president)

2004-2010
PhD in Sociology, with honours, University of Toulouse.
Dissertation title: “La Fabrique de l’avenir. Une sociologie historique des business plans” [“Manufacturing the future: An historical sociology of business plans”]
Committee: Franck Cochoy (advisor), Michel Grossetti, Bruno Latour, Philippe Steiner, and Pierre-Paul Zalio

2000-2004
Master’s degree (Magistère) in Modern Humanities, École Normale Supérieure - Cachan

2003-2004
M.Phil. (Diplôme d’Études Approfondies) in Sociology, University of Toulouse

2002-2003
Agrégation (teaching certification) in Social and Economic Sciences

2001-2002
Master’s degree (Maîtrise) in Sociology, University of Paris - Nanterre

2000-2001
Bachelor’s degree (Licence) double major in Sociology and Economics, University of Paris - Nanterre