The “forced performativity” of a strategy concept: Exploring how shared value shaped a gambling company's strategy

Using performativity as a theoretical angle, this paper explores how shared value, a strategic management concept, shaped a gambling company's strategy despite the inherent inconsistency between gambling, a socially harmful activity, and shared value, which is intended to create economic value by creating social value. The study introduces the notion of “forced performativity”, the process wherein a concept performs in a highly infelicitous context. It identifies three moments that were determinant in the forced performativity of shared value: the Porter author-isation, referring to the mobilisation of the author's persona to establish the legitimacy of the concept; the causality distortion, when causalities drawing explicit links between social and financial performance are created; and the incitement of friction, wherein the purposeful maintaining of tensions ensured the stabilisation of the socio-technical assemblage. These three moments are connected within a process model of forced performativity. The paper contributes to the ongoing debate about how recent sociological ramifications of performativity relate to its linguistic origin by arguing for the complementarity of these two approaches. The intent is also to open a discussion about a performativity-based understanding of corporate social responsibility.