In light of the growing TV industry in Sweden competition is intensified. Production companies have increased in number and public service has gone through major organizational changes in order to adapt to the new market conditions. Stockholm is the major cluster for TV production. As a consequence production firms are located there. The thesis reveals that competition has risen and a certain trend of specialization has taken place. The Swedish public television provider has increased its collaboration with other production companies and also exports its own formats. As quality plays a crucial part in TV production it is relevant to understand the stakeholders and their definition of the concept of quality in relation to production and what role it plays in the interconnection between the decision makers and the creators. This thesis addresses two subjects. First the geographic nature of the Swedish TV industry: Its location, district and the network within the Stockholm region. Second the concept of quality and how the different stakeholders’ within the Stockholm region define quality in TV production. Using qualitative interviews similarities and differences in the concept of quality were discovered. The major differences are related to stakeholders’ relation to the cultural and economic spheres. Two formats were singled out for comparison: Reality shows and TV-series (all genres).  Firstly gate-keepers definitions in relation to formats and genres are analyzed through interviews. Secondly a participatory observation of the Swedish drama series Real Humans was conducted. By observing and interacting with the production and those involved the concept of quality is addressed in the creative context. I argue that there are similarities in the conceptualization of quality between different stakeholders but differences when prioritizing and crafting quality. Hence there is a complexity in the definition within TV-production which is identified and discussed in this thesis. / quality, TV-industry, gate-keeper, network

L’objectif de cette thèse est d’étudier, sous un angle sociologique, la nouvelle pratique de mesure de la performance des entreprises en matière de développement durable. Cette pratique émergente constitue un espace social où s’articulent divers jeux de pouvoir, de confrontation et de résistance de nombre d’acteurs engagés dans le domaine du développement durable. Le premier article présume que l’analyse du discours, socialement construit et constitué, entourant les mesures produites et diffusées (souvent très médiatisées), joue un rôle fondamental dans la compréhension de ladite pratique. En particulier, le discours transmis par les organismes de mesure de la performance socio-environnementale des entreprises, aussi bien dans leurs sites web que dans leurs documents publics, se trouve à promouvoir une idéologie du chiffre qui sous-tend l’exercice d’un certain pouvoir de type disciplinaire sur les entreprises évaluées. En dépit de toutes les ambiguïtés et les incertitudes méthodologiques associées à la pratique de la mesure socio-environnementale, les organismes de mesure s’efforcent de développer et de transmettre un discours, relativement réducteur, pour légitimer leur revendication d’expertise en la matière. Le deuxième article de cette thèse fait état des stratégies de légitimation déployées par les organismes de mesure ainsi que leurs effets disciplinaires sur les entreprises évaluées et les parties prenantes. Il s’agit, dans les faits, du pouvoir disciplinaire et de normalisation de l’idéologie des chiffres qui peut induire certains effets d’autodiscipline dans le champ du développement durable en général. Une telle autodiscipline s’observe également dans le monde universitaire lorsque les gardes-frontières des organisations font pression sur les chercheurs à renoncer à la publication de leurs recherches. Prenant la forme d’une étude méthodologique, le troisième article de la thèse cherche à susciter une réflexion sur les entraves que peut poser le pouvoir des gardiens des organisations, notamment lorsque celui prend la forme de menaces de poursuites judiciaires, sur l’indépendance et la liberté des chercheurs et des universités auxquelles ils se rattachent. / The objective of this dissertation is to examine, under a sociological lens, the new practice of the corporate sustainability performance measurement. This emerging practice seems to be a social space where are structured various games of power, confrontation and resistance of many actors involved in the field of sustainable development. The first paper assumes that discourse analysis, socially constructed and constituted, surrounding measurements produced and disclosed (often highly popularized through the media), plays a fundamental role in the understanding of the practice of corporate sustainability performance measurement. In particular, the discourse transmitted by the sustainability ratings and rankings agencies (SRRA), both on their websites and in their public documents, tends to promote an ideology of numbers that exerts disciplinary power over companies appraised. Despite all the ambiguities and methodological uncertainties associated with the practice of socio-environmental performance measurement, SRRA strive to develop and transmit discourse, quite reductive, to legitimize their claim to expertise in the field. The second paper of this dissertation outlines the legitimation strategies deployed by SRRA and the disciplinary impacts of these strategies on companies scrutinized and stakeholders. Actually, it is the disciplinary power and the normalization power of the ideology of numbers which can induce some effects of self-discipline in the field of sustainable development in general. Such self-discipline is also observed in the academic world when corporate gate-keepers put pressure on researchers to abandon the publication of their research. As a methodological study, the third paper of the dissertation seeks to stimulate reflection on the impediments that the power of the corporate gate-keepers can pose on the independence and the freedom of the researchers and the universities to which they are attached, especially in the case of threats of lawsuits.