{"title":"The gendered nature of valuation: Valuing life in the Titanic compensation claims process","authors":"Ingrid Jeacle","doi":"10.1016/j.aos.2021.101309","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The sinking of the Titanic has captured the public imagination for over a century. A tragic tale of man's powerlessness over nature, it has served as a lesson in hubris that has been dramatized in film and immortalised in popular culture. Following the disaster, relatives of the deceased lodged compensation claims against the White Star Line (registered owners of the Titanic). In these compensation claims for loss of life we witness the monetary commensuration of life. For the accounting scholar, therefore, the Titanic story offers an opportunity to contribute to the growing body of research in the area of valuation; in particular, it facilitates an understanding of the valuing of human life. Drawing on the history of life assurance and compensation legislation in both the UK and US, the paper argues that by the time of the Titanic disaster in 1912, an accounting constellation (Burchell et al., 1995) had been formed which established an equivalence between the value of a life and economic earning power. However, while this earnings based model determined the value of men lost in the tragedy, it failed to commensurate the lives of women and children. Rather emotion and sentiment arising from the high profile nature of the disaster appeared to allow for a plurality of other valuations to emerge that ruptured the pre-configured constellation and challenged the linear trajectory of the economic model. As such, Titanic was a “valuation event” which severely disrupted the existing gendered assemblage. The contribution of this paper therefore is to recognise the gendered nature of valuation and to appreciate the impact of such gender bias on the practice of valuation.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48379,"journal":{"name":"Accounting Organizations and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6000,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"8","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Accounting Organizations and Society","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0361368221000878","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"BUSINESS, FINANCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 8
Abstract
The sinking of the Titanic has captured the public imagination for over a century. A tragic tale of man's powerlessness over nature, it has served as a lesson in hubris that has been dramatized in film and immortalised in popular culture. Following the disaster, relatives of the deceased lodged compensation claims against the White Star Line (registered owners of the Titanic). In these compensation claims for loss of life we witness the monetary commensuration of life. For the accounting scholar, therefore, the Titanic story offers an opportunity to contribute to the growing body of research in the area of valuation; in particular, it facilitates an understanding of the valuing of human life. Drawing on the history of life assurance and compensation legislation in both the UK and US, the paper argues that by the time of the Titanic disaster in 1912, an accounting constellation (Burchell et al., 1995) had been formed which established an equivalence between the value of a life and economic earning power. However, while this earnings based model determined the value of men lost in the tragedy, it failed to commensurate the lives of women and children. Rather emotion and sentiment arising from the high profile nature of the disaster appeared to allow for a plurality of other valuations to emerge that ruptured the pre-configured constellation and challenged the linear trajectory of the economic model. As such, Titanic was a “valuation event” which severely disrupted the existing gendered assemblage. The contribution of this paper therefore is to recognise the gendered nature of valuation and to appreciate the impact of such gender bias on the practice of valuation.
一个多世纪以来,泰坦尼克号的沉没一直吸引着公众的目光。这是一个关于人类对自然无能为力的悲剧故事,它给人们上了一堂傲慢的课,被改编成电影,并在流行文化中永世流传。灾难发生后,死者亲属向白星航运公司(泰坦尼克号的注册所有者)提出了赔偿要求。在这些对生命损失的赔偿要求中,我们看到了生命的金钱比约。因此,对于会计学者来说,泰坦尼克号的故事提供了一个机会,可以为估值领域日益增多的研究做出贡献;特别是,它促进了对人类生命价值的理解。根据英美两国人寿保险和赔偿立法的历史,本文认为,到1912年泰坦尼克号灾难发生时,已经形成了一个会计星座(Burchell et al., 1995),该星座建立了生命价值与经济盈利能力之间的等价物。然而,虽然这种以收入为基础的模式确定了在悲剧中失去的男人的价值,但它未能与妇女和儿童的生命相称。相反,由于灾难的高调性质而产生的情绪和情绪似乎允许多种其他估值出现,这些估值打破了预先配置的星座,并挑战了经济模型的线性轨迹。因此,《泰坦尼克号》是一场“估值事件”,严重破坏了现有的性别组合。因此,本文的贡献在于认识到估值的性别性质,并认识到这种性别偏见对估值实践的影响。
期刊介绍:
Accounting, Organizations & Society is a major international journal concerned with all aspects of the relationship between accounting and human behaviour, organizational structures and processes, and the changing social and political environment of the enterprise.