Staying out while fitting in: the paradox of collectively quantifying alternative organizations

Alternative organizations face increasing pressures to provide numerical evidence of their impact. We conceptualize this quantification process as socially constructed and actualized in relation to a conform and oppose tension resulting from the clash of market norms and alternative values. As alternative organizations deliver numbers to varied audiences, feedback loops of reactivity (how audience members are shaped and react) and retroaction (how those reactions and also internal processes re-shape the quantifier) evolve within a contentious field. We use archival and interview data to trace over 15 years the quantification initiative of the International Cooperative Alliance, the global apex organization representing 2.6 million cooperatives globally. We develop a process model of relational quantification to identify how three quantification conventions, the authority, aesthetics, and validity of numbers, iteratively shape diverse field audience reactions to quantification. Our model reorients the quantification literature to this relational, contentious, and dynamic process.