Ranking the Rankers: The New Industry of Influencer Relations

The continued proliferation of product and service rankings constitutes one of the most important challenges facing organisations today (Espeland & Sauder 2007). Few aspects of the economy and society remain untouched by rankings of one form or another. At this moment in time, however, rankings are both broadening and deepening their coverage. Certain phenomenon can be ranked many times over by different offline and increasingly online measures. New social media are being used and mined to provide novel forms of ranking and assessment. Since negative assessments, or a failure to appear on a significant ranking, can have immediate impacts upon consumer or client decision making there is no choice but to take these evaluations seriously. But this presents a new and pressing problem for organisations: given the increasing number and variety, which rankings should they respond to? And how?

This project investigates how new specialist forms of technical and market specialists have emerged to help organisations confront and respond to this growing pressure. New groups of 'influencer relations' experts can be found across industrial sectors. In this project, we focus on those within the information and communication technology (ICT) area where there is evidence emerging that they have been highly effective in creating opportunities for local influence over global rankings, and that their presence is having consequences for (re)shaping the power of rankings more generally. Yet despite their obvious importance, we still know very little if anything about these experts and the kinds of knowledge they produce or influence they wield.

We study these new groups as they become more organised and attempt to move from an occupation to a 'profession'. We provide a fine-grained analysis of their work and expertise, which includes exploring their 'calculative practices' and use of new 'technologies'. The calculative practices examined are their efforts to search for the rankings that make a difference in a particular product or service area, so that organisations can prioritise their response to them. We also pay particular attention to the disruptive potential of new social media technologies that form a central part of this search process. Data analytic tools and 'big data' are being deployed to aid the measurement of a ranking's influence. We investigate the influence of two such measurement tools 'TweetLevel' and 'BlogLevel', which contain algorithms that crawl blogs and social networking sites to return a 'score' based on various weighted metrics concerning the impact of a ranking. Finally, we also study how some of these experts have established independent agencies and consultancies and are attempting to create a new market for consultancy and supplementary knowledge-based products related to rankings.

The methodology used will be qualitative and include semi-structured interviews and ethnography. We have secured privileged access to observe these actors within one of the key bodies - the Institute for Industry Analyst Relations (IIAR) - which is taking a leadership role in the ongoing professionalisation project. Our empirical focus is at different levels: historically, where we study the emergence and formation of this new occupation over 30 years; geographically, where we draw broad-scope links between the growth of these actors here and in the US and to a lesser extent mainland Europe; and at the level of practice, where we contrast the (potentially different) calculative practices of these groups of actors and investigate the different ways in which these experts employ new social media technologies.

The project draws on the capabilities of a team of leading scholars with excellent track records of engaging with academics, policy makers and practitioners and disseminating research findings to wider audiences.

Engagement
In order to ensure the research is relevant to those in an industry and policy context, for instance, Pollock and Campagnolo undertook a pilot study during Winter 2013/14. Indeed, the project as presented here has been shaped by ongoing interactions established as a result of the pilot study. We have developed excellent links with one of the main practitioner bodies - the Institute for Industry Analyst Relations (IIAR), who is a 'partner' in this project - responsible for fostering influencer relations expertise. Members of the IIAR have contributed directly to the shaping of our research focus and questions. We have also sought the input of policy makers in the shaping of this proposal (particularly the Office of Fair Trading [OFT] who commented on the direction and implications of this research proposal).

We will maintain this level of engagement during the life of the project through three mechanisms. Firstly, by making a series of contributions through the IIAR communication channels (see Pathways to Impact for more details). Secondly, through establishing and seeking the assistance of an Advisory Board which we will set up to help us to identify effective routes for engagement and knowledge exchange with practitioner groups more broadly. Thirdly, we will engage with policy primarily through our links to the OFT. In preparing and discussing the proposal with the OFT, for instance, we have already been invited to submit evidence as part of their 'Call for Information into the Supply of ICT to the Public Sector'.

Impact and dissemination
The project will have three main impacts. First, in detailing the practices and technologies of influencer relations specialists, it will provide accessible accounts of the mechanisms that are likely to be effective in encouraging successful engagement between local organisations and global ranking bodies. These insights will be communicated via the IIAR (talks, webinars, podcasts, white papers etc) and through delivery of a Continuing Professional Development course to practitioners.

Second, the project will be of interest to technology consumers more generally. Rankings - particularly the 'uncertainty' that surrounds their construction - are often the subject of reports in the information and communication technology (ICT) industry press. Newspaper articles - in outlets like Computer Weekly - are one of the main ways in which technology practitioners read and find out about new developments. The expansion of the ranking chain, the complexification of the ranking ecosystem, and the proliferation of new forms of expert and expertise will be set out in two accessible articles in Computer Weekly.

Third, the project will increase awareness amongst policy makers and the wider innovation community of the importance of rankings for competition. There are many scattered and often contrasting insights about the shape of the current ranking ecosystem with regard to its influence on competition and innovation. It is argued, for instance, that heterogeneity amongst rankings is both positive (Stark 2011) and negative (Sauder & Espeland 2006). We will give sustained attention to help clarify this issue, in particular highlighting mechanisms that might encourage more positive developments in the ecosystem, through running a workshop, a session at an international conference, and through publishing a special issue of a leading policy relevant journal. We will then feed the results from these discussions to policy makers, in particular the Office of Fair Trading (who are carrying out ongoing investigations into factors like rankings that skew competition within ICT procurement markets).