Archives par étiquette : conventions de qualité / quality conventions

Quantifier les qualités

Revue Française de Socio-Économie
2017/2 (n° 19)

Qualité des produits, de l’environnement, des soins, de la recherche, qualité de vie au travail, dans un territoire, en prison, qualité sociale des entreprises, etc. : l’exigence croissante de qualité se manifeste d’abord par la multiplication des dispositifs visant à la mesurer et à la garantir. Ceux-ci vont des indicateurs aux procédures d’audit, en passant par des classements, des scores, des notations, des benchmarks, des palmarès, etc. Comment expliquer cette multiplication des initiatives destinées à quantifier des qualités ?

D’abord, cela souligne une difficulté classique à s’accorder sur ce qui fait qualité. Ensuite, cela signale que les qualités sont trop diverses, plurielles ou multifaces pour qu’un seul type de quantification suffise à les traduire. Enfin, cela renvoie aux activités quotidiennes des individus et des collectifs qui, dans un effort pour s’orienter en situation d’incertitude, s’engagent dans la recherche et l’invention incessante de nouvelles qualités. « Quantifier au nom de la qualité » ne signifie donc pas que la qualité n’est qu’un prétexte à la quantification. L’apparent oxymore invite surtout à ne pas (ou ne plus) opposer qualités et quantités. La vocation de ce dossier n’est pas d’explorer toutes les facettes de cet objet complexe pour les sciences sociales qu’est la « qualité », du fait de son caractère a priori normatif ou évaluatif. Il se centre sur la facette qui concerne les pratiques de quantification, le travail de production de mesures et de calculs et les éventuelles transformations que ces pratiques et ce travail induisent.

Articles du dossier :

  • Alexandra Bidet, Florence Jany-Catrice : Introduction au dossier Quantifier les qualités, p.  19-26
  • Bartolomeo Cappellina : Quantifier la qualité de la justice entre droits de l’homme et modernisation. Une étude de la fabrique d’instruments d’évaluation des systèmes judiciaires au niveau européen, p. 27-46
  • Michel Renault, Pascale Meriot, Annie Gouzien : Élaborer des indicateurs avec les citoyens. Lecture pragmatiste d’une méthode d’enquête sur les valeurs, p. 47-67
  • Céline Remy, Lynda Lavitry : La quantité contre la qualité ? Des professionnels de l’emploi entre « esprit gestionnaire » et relation de service, p. 69-88
  • Thomas Collas : Que guide un guide ? Évaluation et attention des producteurs aux notes sur les marchés des bonbons de chocolat, p. 89-110
  • Nicolas Da Silva : Quantifier la qualité des soins. Une critique de la rationalisation de la médecine libérale française, p. 111-130
  • Hugo Bertillot : Mesurer la qualité pour transformer l’hôpital ? Analyse sociotechnique d’une discrète quantification, p. 131-152

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Processus de qualification et construction d’un compromis institutionnel territorialisé. La gestion intégrée de l’eau par bassin dans le canton de Fribourg (Suisse)

Arnaud Buchs (2016)

Développement durable et territoires [En ligne], Vol. 7, n°3

Cet article appréhende la qualification comme un processus normatif qui conditionne la mobilisation des ressources naturelles par des acteurs aux intérêts et référentiels divers, voire divergents. Outre les attributs des ressources, la qualification comprend les modes et l’échelle de régulation préconisés par les acteurs. Promue par les autorités fédérales suisses depuis le début des années 2000, la gestion intégrée par bassins-versants (GIB) est considérée comme un impératif pour un usage soutenable de l’eau. Cependant, sa mise en œuvre pose la question de l’écart vis-à-vis du modèle théorique. Nous traitons du cas du renouvellement de la loi sur l’eau dans le canton de Fribourg, initié au début des années 2000 et achevé en 2014, visant à généraliser une GIB à l’échelle cantonale. La restitution du processus de qualification permet de dépasser les visions naturalisées et fonctionnalistes de la GIB pour montrer que celle mise en place à Fribourg relève d’un compromis institutionnel territorialisé fruit d’une action collective.

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Forthcoming…

Buchs A. (2018) Integrated Water Resources Management as a Compromise: Renewing the Water Act in the Canton of Fribourg, Switzerland. In: Bréthaut C., Schweizer R. (eds) A Critical Approach to International Water Management Trends. Palgrave Studies in Water Governance: Policy and Practice. Palgrave Macmillan, London

Internationally promoted for decades, integrated water resources management (IRWM) has been considered as an imperative for sustainable water use by Swiss federal authorities since the early 2000s. However, its operationalisation leads us to question the gap vis-à-vis the theoretical model. The analysis of the renewal process of the Water Act in the canton of Fribourg shows that integrated management has to be considered as a regionalised institutional compromise: first, the scope of sectoral integration is not given; secondly, the scale finally adopted does not fit exactly the watershed, even though it is presented as the perfect functional space for regulating water use. Thanks to a historical and comprehensive approach, we strive to overpass “naturalised” and “functionalist” visions of water resources management.

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Konventionen der Arbeitsintegration

Alan Canonica (2017)

Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte (Journal of Business History), 62(2), pp. 233–255.

English Abstract. Conventions of Occupational Integration. The Employment of Disabled People in Swiss Enterprises (1950 to 1980). Disabled people’s access to the labour market is one of the leading ideas in disability policy. Its success depends on the willingness of employers to employ handicapped people. Both historical and social studies focus on the welfare state or the people in question, while the perspective of the employers is often neglected. Under what conditions are companies willing to employ people whose performance diverges from the common interest to maximise economic output? Switzerland is well suited for a case study, since there are no regulations for employers, such as a quota-system. Incorporating the theory of «économie des conventions», this study investigates how employers’ associations and companies justify employment of disabled people and how these people are valued. The timeframe investigated spans from the immediate post-war period to 1980.

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Shaping food systems towards improved nutrition: a case study on Tuscan Bread Protected Designation of Origin

Francesca Galli, Francesca Venturi, Fabio Bartolini, Oriana Gava, Angela Zinnai, Sanmartin Chiara, Gianpaolo Andrich & Gianluca Brunori (2017)

International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, 20(4), p. 533-552

Abstract. The concern for the quality of food, its composition and contribution towards nutrition and health is widespread among public and private food system actors. The increasing interest in locally integrated supply chains leads to reconsider the configuration of the food system in relation to sustainability and health outcomes. This article focuses on the relationship between processing practices and nutritional value in the wheat-tobread sector, illustrated by a case study on the Tuscan Bread Protected Designation of Origin (PDO). By adopting a food system perspective, the case study shows how the different actors have mobilized to respond to multiple drivers of change. A mixed research method approach is adopted to illustrate the relationship between processing practices and nutritional value outcomes: practice-based indicators for each step of the chain are complemented with performance-based indicators of the chemical, physical and sensorial profile of Tuscan Bread PDO. Furthermore, the implications on food system governance of a differentiation strategy based on territorial origin and enhanced nutrition are discussed.

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“Marketing quality” in the food sector. Towards a critical engagement with the “quality turn” in wine

Eva Parga-Dans & Pablo Alonso Gonzales (2017)

In: Geoforum 85 (october), p. 5-8

Abstract. Our review explores the role of quality conventions that have emerged since the ‘quality turn’ in the food sector. By examining how the ‘quality turn’ contributes to transforming the wine sector, it asks whether the labeling systems seek to certify the quality of productive practices (informative function) or are intended to create imaginaries of quality as a differentiated business market strategy (symbolic function). After discussing relevant literature in geography and related fields, this review uses two emblematic examples from the wine sector to argue for the need to move beyond the marketing of quality to deepen the analysis and understanding of quality. This analytic insight questions the viability and usefulness of quality conventions aimed at differentiation, territorial development, with a focus on markets with high added value, and argues for the need to open new lines of research and policy in this sphere.

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Marketing and compromising for sustainability. Competing orders of worth in the North Atlantic

John H. Finch, Susi Geiger & Rachel Joy Harkness (2017)

Marketing Theory, 17(1), pp. 71-93.

Abstract. The purpose of our article is to propose that compromising is a constitutive characteristic of those marketing systems that entail matters of public interest or concern. In such markets, actors design compromises as they encounter criticisms of and contending justifications for the market’s products, as these refer to price, efficiency in production and use, regulatory compliance or ecological sustainability. Tests and justifications are vital in order to determine what is valuable and by which measure. As a theory framework, the economic sociology of conventions provides a basis for assessing these contests, compromises, and justifications over the issue of worth in a marketing context. Through an ethnographic study of the regulated activities of chemicals service companies supporting the upstream petroleum industry, we assess how actors evaluate and justify the market’s products and services in this environmentally sensitive setting by means of tests drawing from different orders of worth: the green, the industrial and the market order. Our contributions show that by artful and pragmatic compromising around exchanges, actors in marketing systems can balance several conflicting orders of worth over the question of worth without needing to converge on an overriding institutional logic.

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Public branding audit. A pathway to brand accountability

Sabrina Gabl, Verena E. Wieser & Andrea Hemetsberger (2016)

In Ozcaglar-Toulouse, Nil/Rinallo, Diego/Belk, Russel W. (eds.)(2016): Consumer Culture Theory. Bingley (UK): Emerald Group, pp. 147-167.

Purpose. We stress the public demand for accountability of global brands and the rise in normative public brand evaluations in online networks. To gain an empirical and theoretical understanding of these phenomena, we introduce the notion of public brand auditing, which refers to public agents collectively contrasting brands against a multiplicity of shared understandings of what is worthy and good.
Methodology/approach. Convention theory serves as a theoretical lens to conceptualize public brand auditing, since it provides a normative framework of orders of worth based on which the appropriateness of actions are judged. Empirically, we conduct a netnographic study and illustrate public auditing strategies with online discussions about Google on the Slashdot platform.
Findings. We find that public brand auditing comprises two major auditing strategies: drawing leeways of acceptable brand conduct and allocating responsibilities.
Research implications. Approaching public forms of normative brand judgments from a convention theory perspective allows researchers to better understand how the public holds brands accountable and evaluates brand conduct against higher-order principles.
Practical implications. The concept of public brand auditing helps managers to understand and approach the normative basis of both positive and negative brand judgments.
Social implications. We urge brands to monitor public demand for accountability and emphasize the importance of the civic, market, and industrial orders of worth in guiding brand conduct.
Originality/value. This paper offers a conceptualization of and a framework for investigating public brand auditing phenomena.

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Convention theory in the Anglophone agro-food literature: Past, present and future

Stefano Ponte (2016)

Journal of Rural Studies, 44, pp. 12-23.

Abstract. In the past two decades, convention theory has been applied in various branches of agro-food studies, providing analytical and theoretical insight for examining alternative food networks, coordination and governance in agro-food value chains, and the so-called ‘quality turn’ in food production and consumption. In this article, I examine convention theory applications in the Anglophone literature on agro-food studies through the review of 51 relevant contributions. I highlight how CT has helped explain different modes of organization and coordination of agro-food operations in different places, and how it has provided new venues of approaching quality – in view of understanding how exchange of agro-food products takes place and with what social and power dynamics. I trace two main analytical streams of this literature: one focussing on agro-food adaptations of the ‘worlds of production’ framework (Salais and Storper, 1992; Storper and Salais, 1997); and another applying the ‘orders of worth’ approach of Boltanski and Thevenot (1991[2006]) and further elaborations of ‘quality conventions’. After tracing broad trajectories and the significance of new developments in this literature, I highlight its current limitations and suggest some directions for future research.

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La théorie des conventions en géographie économique : un éclairage apporté par l’application à l’industrie espagnole du vin

Eugenio Climent-López &  José Luis Sánchez-Hernández (2015)

Géographie, économie, société, 17, p. 25-50.

Le cadre théorique des conventions et des mondes de production permet de comprendre les tendances actuelles dans le système agroalimentaire. La conceptualisation de la qualité des aliments, l’émergence de réseaux alimentaires alternatifs et les processus d’innovation dans le système agroalimentaire ont tous été étudiés à partir de la typologie des conventions et des mondes de production. Cette littérature est essentiellement qualitative et repose sur des études de cas. Cet article présente une approche quantitative permettant de mesurer les conventions et de situer les producteurs de denrées alimentaires dans les différents mondes de production. La base empirique est un échantillon de douze AOC viticoles espagnoles. En utilisant des sources de données officielles ou ouvertes, vingt-huit indicateurs ont été définis pour mesurer les six types de conventions dans chaque AOC, et dix-huit ont été choisis pour identifier les mondes de production. Cette méthode montre la contribution de l’analyse quantitative, face au discours qualitatif dominant et suggère que d’autres études comparatives peuvent servir aux entreprises agroalimentaires pour soutenir leurs décisions stratégiques.

Convention theory in economic geography: a perspective provided by the application to the Spanish wine industry

The theoretical framework of conventions and worlds of production provides useful support to understand the current trends in the agro-food system. The conceptualization of food quality, the emergence of alternative food networks and the innovation processes in the food system have all been addressed by using the typologies of conventions and worlds of production. This body of academic literature is mostly qualitative and based on case studies. This article discusses a quantitative approach to the measurement of conventions and the allocation of food producers to different worlds of production. The empirical support comes from a sample of twelve Spanish PDO wine districts. By using official or open-data sources, twenty-eight indicators have been designed to measure the six kinds of conventions in each wine district, and eighteen ones have been chosen to identify worlds of production. This methodology shows the contribution of quantitative analysis to the prevailing qualitative discourse and suggests that further comparative studies may be useful for food cluster partners to support strategic decisions.

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Approche économique de la qualité d’un bien intermédiaire : application à la filière rizicole malgache, par Tiana Rakotondramanitra

Thèse soutenue le 3 décembre 2014 sous la direction d’Olivier Favereau

Madagascar souffre d’une insuffisance chronique en riz, aliment de base de la population. La filière peine à sortir de la dépendance aux importations et encore moins à développer les exportations. Nous tentons de voir en quoi ces contre-performances reflètent une « crise de la qualité » dans les échanges à l’aide du modèle de marché de Harrison White (2002) qui analyse la notion de viabilité des échanges autour des questions de qualité. Celle-ci passe par l’existence d’un ordre de qualité du riz (paddy ou blanchi) fondé sur les perceptions ressenties par les acteurs. Pour cela, les intermédiaires de la filière ont à définir une orientation de leurs activités en amont ou en aval selon la localisation de la plus grande incertitude sur la qualité du riz, pour saisir, et être en accord avec, les perceptions de la qualité par les acteurs concernés. L’analyse des échanges dans l’Alaotra-Mangoro donne les résultats suivants. 1/ Trois circuits de commercialisation du riz sont théoriquement viables. Le circuit « dominant » et le circuit « à la marge » sont dominés respectivement par une convention de qualité « domestique » basée sur la qualité nutritive du paddy et une autre « industrielle » basée sur la qualité esthétique du riz blanchi. Sur le circuit « transitionnel », coexistent les deux conventions de qualité, « domestique » en amont et « industrielle » en aval. 2/ L’ordre de qualité sur ce circuit résulterait d’un compromis entre conventions matérialisé par un référentiel de qualité esthétique et nutritive du riz (paddy et blanchi). 3/ La reconnaissance de ces deux conventions de qualité et de la nécessité d’un compromis entre celles-ci rendrait les échanges viables et lèverait l’actuelle « crise de la qualité » au sein de la filière.

Economic Approach of Input Quality : application to the rice value chain in the Alaotra-Mangoro region (Madagascar)

Madagascar suffers from a chronic insufficiency of rice, the staple food of the population.The value chain is struggling to emerge from dependence on imports and even less to develop exports.We try to see how these poor performances reflect a “quality crisis” in rice exchanges by means of themarket model of Harrison White (2002) and its concept of market “viability” based on quality issues.To be viable, market needs to be governed by an order of quality defined by perceptions on ricequality from actors at play. The intermediaries have then to orient upstream or downstream theiractivities depending on where the greatest uncertainty on quality is in order to take into accountquality perceptions by the actors involved. Rice exchanges analysis in the Alaotra-Mangoro gives thefollowing results. 1 / Three rice marketing channels are theoretically viable. The “dominating”marketing channel and the “marginal” one are respectively ruled by a “domestic” quality conventionaround the nutritious quality of paddy and an “industrial” one around the esthetic quality of milledrice. Both quality conventions exist on the “transitional” channel: the “domestic” convention is sharedby upstream and the “industrial” one by downstream. 2 / The order of quality on this last marketingchannel would be a compromise between the two existing conventions and is materialized by areferential of esthetic and nutritious quality. 3 / The recognition of these two quality conventions andof the need for compromise between them would enable rice exchanges to be viable and then wouldend the “quality crisis” at the origin of the poor performances of the Malagasy rice value chain.