ASSOCIATION FOR CONSUMER RESEARCH
Labovitz School of Business & Economics, University of Minnesota Duluth, 11 E. Superior Street, Suite 210, Duluth, MN 55802
Extending the Sociocultural Perspective on Value Creation: the Role of Object Circulation in Consumer Collectives
Bernardo Figueiredo, RMIT University, Australia
Daiane Scaraboto, Escuela de Administración, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Chile
We expand sociocultural understanding of value creation in consumer collectives by demonstrating how practices of object circulation
create value systemically. Our four-stage framework draws from practice theory and anthropological theories of value-in-action to
analyze ethnographic and netnographic data from consumers of Geocaching, a tech-mediated treasure hunting game.
[to cite]:
Bernardo Figueiredo and Daiane Scaraboto (2015) ,"Extending the Sociocultural Perspective on Value Creation: the Role of
Object Circulation in Consumer Collectives", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 43, eds. Kristin Diehl and
Carolyn Yoon, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 522-523.
[url]:
http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/1019001/volumes/v43/NA-43
[copyright notice]:
This work is copyrighted by The Association for Consumer Research. For permission to copy or use this work in whole or in
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Extending the Sociocultural Perspective on Value Creation:
the Role of Object Circulation in Consumer Collectives
Bernardo Figueiredo, RMIT University, Australia
Daiane Scaraboto, Escuela de Administración, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
EXTENDED ABSTRACT
According to the sociocultural perspective on value creation
(Arnould 2014; Holbrook 1999; Holt 1995; Karababa and Kjeldgaard
2013; Schau, Muniz, and Arnould 2009, value is not independently
situated in an individual or object, but “resides in the actions and
interactions, which resources make possible or support” (Arnould
2014, 22). Thus seen, value creation is the outcome of consumer
social practices (Arnould 2014; Arsel and Bean 2013; Schau et al.
2009). Even though the focus on practices has improved our understanding of value creation in consumer collectives (Holt 1995; Schau
et al. 2009), there is still need for a more systemic perspective on value creation that accounts for interactions among practices (Arnould
2014; Arsel and Bean 2013) and their sociocultural embeddedness
(Boulaire and Cova 2013). Our study shows that a focus on practices
of object circulation can help illuminate this issue.
Drawing from current anthropological debates, we develop a
value-in-action perspective that helps to further elaborate on how
value is created in consumer collectives. The anthropological perspective of value-in-action explicitly focuses on social actions, that
is, on acts “falling under a particular and culturally standardized description—and iterated” (Lambek 2013, 145). We adopt three of its
primary tenets:
Circulation
Munn (1986) explains that circulation is value-creating because
it promotes spatiotemporal expansions and transformations. Similarly, Appadurai (1986) argues that by looking at circulation, we can
understand how objects become valuable (i.e., how value is created)
and are valued (i.e., how value outcomes are assessed); Graeber
(2001) notes that circulation has value-creating capacities; and Lambek (2013) considers the value creating capacity of ritual and performativity acts, including those involved in object-transferring. These
understandings support our examination of circulation as central to
the creation of value in consumer collectives.
Transvaluation
The value-in-action perspective also reasons that “there is a
transvaluation from the activity to the object (Eiss and Pedersen
2002) and an objectification of value itself” (Lambek 2013, 142).
That is, the value of actions is transferred and attached to objects,
turning into objectified value. The process of transvaluation was
discussed early by Marx (1909) and Malinowski (1922). Recent approaches note that “value is embodied in the commodities that are
exchanged” (Appadurai 1986, 3) and that objects are not “fully or
purely valuable in and of themselves,” but rather, store the value of
actions and become signs of valuable actions (Lambek 2013, 155).
Co-constitution of Value and Value Systems
By focusing on the actions that create value, the value-in-action
perspective recognizes the embeddedness of value creation in a value system that influences value assessments within a collective and
which is, in turn, shaped by value-creating actions. This is consistent
with the idea that value and values are interrelated and inseparable—
they are essentially the same (Graeber 2001, 15).
Inspired by these tenets, our study mobilizes qualitative data
collected through ethnography and netnography of the geocaching
collective, in which trackable items known as Travel Bugs circulate, with no predetermined itinerary, among geographically spread
members of a large group of hobbyists. Any Geocaching player
who creates a TB may set explicit goals for it (e.g., to travel from
Canada to Alaska or to visit all 50 states in the United States), to
be accomplished as the TB is carried and transferred from person
to person within the Geocaching collective. An estimated two million TBs are in circulation among geocachers (Groundspeak 2013),
and their traceable movement provides important insights regarding
how value creation unfolds when consumers enact practices of object
circulation.
From our ethnographic data we developed a conceptual framework that demonstrates how value is created in consumer collectives
where objects circulate. We use the term systemic value creation to
describe the process through which value is created by practices of
object circulation, transvalued into circulating objects and supporting elements, assessed by members of the consumer collective and
integrated back into a micro-cultural value system (Thompson and
Troester 2002). Systemic value creation comprises: (1) Enactment
(of various practices of object circulation); (2) Transvaluation (indexation of value potential to objects); (3) Assessment (identification
and assessment of value); (4) Integration (alignment of value creation processes and existing value system). In addition to unveiling
the process of value creation in consumer collectives, our findings
explain how the ongoing integration between value systems and the
stages of value creation infuses value creation with a dynamic character.
Our findings expand practice-based understanding of value creation in consumer collectives by specifying how enactments of practices by individual consumers ultimately lead to value creation at the
collective level. While the process of value creation is initiated by
some members who enact practices of object circulation, it requires
the support of other members to generate value outcomes. Indeed,
any individual consumer can enact value-creating practices in the
system, but during the other stages (transvaluation, assessment, and
integration) the potential outcomes of these practices are registered
and assessed by other consumers. As these outcomes are integrated
into the value system to inform future action, the whole collective is
mobilized, and the value creation process is completed, generating
value for the entire collective.
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