Evaluative Schemas and the Mediating Role of Critics

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Hsu, Greta; Roberts, Peter W.; Swaminathan, Anand
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Davis; Emory University
• 刊物名称: ORGANIZATION SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1047-7039
• DOI: 10.1287/orsc.1100.0630
• 发表日期: 2012
• 页码: 83-97
• 关键词: mediated markets; critics; CATEGORIES; sociology of markets

摘要

How do critics enable producers and consumers. to come to mutually agreeable terms of trade? We propose that critics offer more guidance to those who set prices when their quality assessments are structured by clearer evaluative schemas. Schema clarity enables producers to accurately anticipate the quality assessments that critics will disseminate to the market. This allows their posted prices to center more faithfully on prevailing conceptions of quality. We then argue that the position of a producer within the market's social structure in terms of its prior coverage, reputation, and niche width influences the degree to which it is guided by clear evaluative schemas. We test these predictions in the market for U.S. wines. After elaborating a novel approach to inferring the clarity of evaluative schemas within different varietal categories, we demonstrate that list prices are less variable around expected levels when the schemas used to evaluate quality are clearer. Moreover, this effect is stronger among more relevant and more focused producers in each category.