Value and social enterprise - valuation and valuation process in the coordination of market and nonmarket action

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Michaela Haase
• Subject Area: Management and Marketing
• Term: since 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 395401238

The proposed project will follow the project “Social value and social enterprise: an institutional and ideology-critical analysis”. The results of this project include the identification of the structure of the business model of social enterprise organizations (SEOs), the development of a context model for multi-level analyses and an approach to ideology analysis as an analysis of reference to ideas, beliefs, and values. Through its focus on values, valuation, value categories, and value creation in the resource use process, the project connects to research on value (co-)creation in marketing studies. Based on the results of the preliminary project, two research gaps were identified: Little is known about how valuations are made in the resource utilization process and which values are referred to in the process. The valuations of the beneficiaries of the social mission of SEOs, who do not exchange market services with the SEOs, are essential for the effectiveness of the social entrepreneurs' actions or the fulfillment of the social mission - but little is known about the SEOs' collaboration with the beneficiaries of their actions. The project proposal therefore has two main objectives: First, it aims to illuminate the possibilities that philosophical value theory (PVT) opens up for the study of value beyond social psychological value research (Objective 1a). Furthermore, the significance of values and value categories originating from the social sciences is to be investigated, how the connection of social-scientific and philosophical values and value categories can be understood and which empirical relevance can be attributed to it (Objective 1b). The empirical focus is on expanding knowledge about the valuations of those beneficiaries of SEOs’ actions who are addressed by them through the social mission but do not demand market services from them. The focus is on the valuation processes and the SEOs’ knowledge of what the beneficiaries consider valuable (Objective 2). The basis of the analysis is marketing theory, PVT, and pragmatic sociology (Boltanski/Thevénot, Lamont). Marketing theory identifies valuations in the resource use process as the means and place of value creation (value in use, value in context). PVT directs attention to the justification of judgments that include not only the private good but also the non-private good. Pragmatic sociology specifies social value orders ('orders of worth') or starting points for identifying objective social scientific values. The empirical research is based on action research and qualitative methods and is done in collaboration with social entrepreneurs and their beneficiaries. An international workshop will reflect the results against the background of the disciplines involved, generate publications and identify further research needs.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Austria, New Zealand
• Cooperation Partners: Professor Dr. Michael Ehret; Dr. Julia Fehrer