The Value-Translation Model of Consumer Activism: How Consumer Watchdog Organizations Change Markets

Abstract How do consumer watchdog organizations (CWOs) change markets? Research on consumer activism has prioritized studying grassroots movements of ordinary consumers over more formalized activist actors, resulting in a paucity of theoretical resources for understanding the activism of powerful consumer organizations such as CWOs. This article draws on the sociology of valuation and evaluation to develop a new theoretical model of consumer activism, the value-translation model, which departs from previous research in shifting the focus from activists’ efforts to change which higher-order values govern markets to activists’ efforts to change how they govern markets. Through a historical study of a Danish CWO associated with the comparative-testing movement, the article shows how CWOs “translate” higher-order values into “trials of value” (i.e., practical evaluation procedures that “test” the strength of the connection between goods and higher-order values) and “evaluation agents” (i.e., market actors capable of carrying out and acting on evaluations). Such translations structure how higher-order values influence markets and are therefore critical to manage for directing market change. The study extends our understanding of how objects are systemically valorized and revalorized and how formalized forms of consumer activism can play an important role in such processes.