Financialization

Since the financial crisis of 2007-8, scholarly research on financialization has moved from being a niche discussion between a modest number of political economists and economic geographers, to become a concept that has entered the lexicon of general business and management research. According to Web of Science - a database of academic publications - the number of academic articles written with ‘financialization’ or ‘financialisation’ in their abstract has increased from 12 in 2007, the year the crisis emerged, to 355 by 2021 (figure 1). According to the same database, this growth has been driven by articles they classify as ‘Business and Economics’, which includes journals such as the Journal of Business Ethics, Work, Employment & Society, Human Relations, Accounting Organizations & Society, Organization and other management and organizational outlets. This entry will provide a history of the concept - where it came from, how it is normally defined and how it is measured - before examining how authors have discussed the role of financialization in organizing and organization.