Valorization Dynamics in the Cancer Treatment Market

My dissertation examines processes of valorization, which entail the assignment of value or worth to marketplace entities (e.g., individuals, products, institutions, relationships, or experiences) and how these processes are shaped by the interaction between individual consumption experiences and the historical sociocultural context. Using a multimethod approach, I focus on understanding how valorization takes place at the societal level through the construct of marketplace valorization (Essay 1) and at consumer level through the construct of consumer valorization (Essay 2), and where these two levels interact. The context of this dissertation is the important yet understudied consumption of health services in the cancer treatment market. These prolonged and complex consumption experiences are traumatic in nature, surrounded by urgency and uncertainty, with disease treatments resulting in value disparities related to side effects, mortality, and quality-of-life outcomes. This work makes three theoretical contributions. First, it delineates the construct of marketplace valorization- its subprocesses, influences, and implications for how hierarchies of value emerge. Second, it shows how consumer valorization changes over time under the influence of macro-societal forces, inscribing micro perspectives of value in health service consumption in their larger macro-social, cultural, and historical context. Third, overall I show that value processes are dynamic. These findings contribute to theories of value, extraordinary experiences, market dynamics, market evolution, consumption communities, and carry practical implications for how value processes emerge and shape disparities in health markets and other complex consumption contexts.