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The sociology of valuation (sometimes "valuation studies") is an emerging area of study focusing on the tools, models, processes, politics, cultural differences and other inputs and outcomes of valuation.
The area has strong links to both economic sociology, economic anthropology, social accounting and other critical accounting research. Sociology has had a longstanding interest in value and values, which naturally feeds into an examination of the tools and processes of valuation in society. In terms of economic sociology, Viviana Zelizer and the cultural school of economic sociology can be seen as an early precursor to this area of interest, with following work by her students and postdoctoral researchers (e.g. Olav Velthuis in art), [1] along with Patrick Aspers, Jens Beckert, Marion Fourcade, [2] [3] Michele Lamont, Donald MacKenzie, David Stark [4] [5] and many others. Considerably more could be said on the topic about French sociologists, given the longstanding traditions of theorists like Pierre Bourdieu. While the methods of researchers from economic sociology tended to be either qualitative (usually cultural approaches) or quantitative, a different approach came from the critical accounting area, with a focus on accounting models, tools and devices. Here, the theory of market devices was one early precursor to this work, and researchers in this area have been strongly influenced by sociological research in both the US and European schools. Part of this is due to the overlap of work from science and technology studies (STS) and sociology of knowledge, where we again see influences from e.g. Donald MacKenzie and Karin Knorr Cetina, [6] as well as Bruno Latour, Michel Callon and related Paris-Mines innovation school and others, such as Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot. [7]
The area shows growing interest, given a number of books [8] and a degree of institutionalization as a potential subfield shown by the first issue of the academic journal Valuation Studies [9] in 2013, [10] while existing journals in cultural sociology and economic sociology, like Poetics and Socio-Economic Review , show a strong treatment of the topic even before the valuation label came to have a common and recognizable use as a research focus (e.g. specifically used as a keyword in journal article metadata). There is growing interest in the topic in management (e.g. Cattani and Dunbar, [11] and O'Mahoney, Heusinkveld and Wright [12] ), particularly in the organization and management theory / organization studies subfield, but also in the area of strategy. One reason is that people working in this area do not solely publish in their own field, but often send papers to accounting, sociology or management in order to find an appropriate home for the specific manuscript. Another reason is people trained in sociology, like Ezra Zuckerman, [13] who now work in management. The growing work on valuation also has clear links to existing lines of research in management, such as work on ratings, rankings and prizes, which taps into existing research interests, as well as with evaluation. [14] [15] Finally, there is a growing interest in examining how different things are turned into assets, or assetized, involving forms of capitalization and valuation. [16]
In terms of early work, one might argue that Zelizer's 1978 "Human Values and the Market" [17] article, published in the American Journal of Sociology , was an early example of work on valuation, although it is also a core work in the cultural economic sociology tradition. The integration of an STS mentality that focuses on the tools and organizational processes of valuation is clearly realized in Fourcade's 2011 article comparing valuation practices between France and the US. [3] We also see an interest in values and valuation in classical sociological work, such as Weber's Economy and Society.
There is a difference between the sociology of valuation from the more typical valuation research which occurs in finance and mainstream accounting. A key difference is that the sociology of valuation takes valuation practices, inputs and outcomes as the object of the study. In contrast, valuation work in finance and accounting often has a narrower focus (e.g. solving a specific problem) and is typically more practical and concentrated on the actual processes and results of calculation, with less interest in the social and organizational inputs, social processes, social and organizational implications of valuation.
Political sociology is an interdisciplinary field of study concerned with exploring how governance and society interact and influence one another at the micro to macro levels of analysis. Interested in the social causes and consequences of how power is distributed and changes throughout and amongst societies, political sociology's focus ranges across individual families to the State as sites of social and political conflict and power contestation.
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Charles Horton Cooley was an American sociologist and the son of Michigan Supreme Court Judge Thomas M. Cooley. He studied and went on to teach economics and sociology at the University of Michigan, was a founding member of the American Sociological Association in 1905 and became its eighth president in 1918. He is perhaps best known for his concept of the looking-glass self, which is the concept that a person's self grows out of society's interpersonal interactions and the perceptions of others. Cooley's health began to deteriorate in 1928. He was diagnosed with an unidentified form of cancer in March 1929 and died two months later.
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Viviana A. Rotman Zelizer is an American sociologist and the Lloyd Cotsen '50 Professor of Sociology at Princeton University. She is an economic sociologist who focuses on the attribution of cultural and moral meaning to the economy. A constant theme in her work is economic valuation of the sacred, as found in such contexts as life insurance settlements and economic transactions between sexual intimates. In 2006 she was elected to the PEN American Center and in 2007 she was elected to both the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.
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