What makes a rating useable? Shifting epistemic practices in the ESG rating field

In the last three decades, a new field has emerged around the production and consumption of ratings seeking to reflect corporate performance concerning environmental, social, and governance (ESG) matters. By studying the production and transformation of a rating in this field, we contribute to recent discussions about “cultural fields of accounting”, where calculative innovations are developed by entities operating beyond formal rules or regulations. We analyze how an ESG rating agency tried to set a standard for a “holistic” ESG rating, while interactions between the agency and diverse field actors led to the shifting and hybridizing of logics underlying its rating practices. Building on the literature on production and consumption thinking in epistemic practice, we analyze how the agency transformed its rating from an “accurate” representation of sustainability performance to a useable reference for market actors. This shift provoked an acceleration of epistemic processes, a hollowing-out of analysts' judgment, and a progressive evaporation of their faith in the ratings' potential to disrupt existing investment practices. We discuss the implications of our findings for a better understanding of rating processes and their effects on the transformative potential of ESG ratings, which are ultimately shaped by investors’ preferences. Our case also hints at potential starting points for the diffusion of alternative logics in market-based accounting fields through a hybrid epistemic approach.