Elites and Secret Handshakes Versus Metrics and Rule-Based Acclamation: A Comment on “Measuring the Unmeasurable”
评论Peter Phillips提出的量化规则，探讨其在衡量学术价值时的信任、谈判、透明度及指标失效等问题，并借鉴批判会计学视角分析数字的社会建构性。
In this issue of Econometric Reviews, Peter Phillips proposes a quantitative (objective) rule that might be used as part of the exercise of measuring merit. In this short comment, I will try and place the need for such a rule (lack of trust and pluralism), potential for adoption (negotiation and power), pros (transparency), and cons (metric failure and loss of institutional memory), within both an historical context and a broader strategic management literature. Ultimately, the adoption of such a rule will depend on its ability to convince the relevant community, via negotiation, that subjective assessments can be appropriately summarized numerically. Rather than argue for objectivity or suggest that numbers are somehow neutral transformations of the real world, it may be advantageous to consider some of the lessons from the critical accounting literature that has focused on the “socially constructed nature” of their numerical systems and techniques.