Issue 6(1) is out
We are delighted to announce the publication of 6(1) of Valuation Studies! The issue contains five items.
• In the opening editorial, the co-Editor-in-Chief Fabian Muniesa takes the recent publication in France of several books that appealed to value connoisseurs. He further sees these, largely critiques, in the light of a populist moment where strong efforts are made to reclaim ‘true’ value.
• Daniel Neyland, Marta Gasparin, and Lucia Siu examine in their article price setting with inspiration from Garfinkel's breach experiments. On the basis of experiments done in two different sites, they could through comparisons identify some key differences in the way price setting occurred in each location. They further concluded that the method used has further potential for price setting in different locations.
• In “Reactivity and Resistance to Evaluation Devices” Ulla Forseth together with Stewart Clegg, and Emil Andrè Røyrvik explores the trajectory of a novel evaluation device for customer satisfaction with service encounters and the performance of financial advisors. The case illustrates how a managerial shift in using the device morphed the process from an initial agreement among staff into a dispute. The paper thus shows how quantitative systems of evaluation easily diverge from their initially proposed purposes when in use, producing reactivity and resistance among organizational members.
• In Mihai Varga's contribution, “From the Qualities of Products to the Qualities of Relations”, explores a the dispute over value conventions between mainstream business actors and an alternative food network. The article illustrates the features and tensions of value conventions in alternative food networks by contrasting actors in mainstream agriculture with an expanding organization of agricultural producers adhering to solidarity economy and operating in the grocery sector in Sicily, Italy.
• The issue is concluded a research note Kevin Levillain and Blanche Segrestin where they open by asking whether the values and valuations that control for-profit business are structurally at odds with other important objectives. The piece then outlines the contours for a reform of the business corporation under the term “purpose-driven enterprises.”
