ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book gathers researches about financial work in order to pursue the investigation of financialisation. After the twentieth century's epochal financial crises the study of financialisation has led to researchers pitting finance against economics, speculative value against real value, and assets against earnings. The concept of financialisation emerged in early 2000 and has continually gained importance since then. Financialisation was first characterised as the increase in the share of financial assets in economic transactions, or put differently, as the growing importance of financial activities as a source of profits in the economy. The book presents recent empirical studies about financiers, be they finance-oriented CEOs, CFOs, financial journalists, mergers and acquisitions' advisors, savings bankers, investment funds' managers, and asset or wealth managers. It shows that the financial work is carried out within boundaries created by a specific financial logic.
