The labor of reputation building

Creating, developing and managing individual reputation

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2166071
AutoresG Dumont (0000-0002-2473-5488, Facultat de Ciències Polítiques i Sociologia, Centre d’Estudis Sociològics sobre la Vida Quotidiana i el Treball QUIT, Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, España, autor de correspondencia)
Año2018
Volumen21
Número6
Páginas515-531
Fecha de publicación2018-11-02
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaConsumption Markets & Culture (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1025-3866 • E-ISSN: 1477-223X
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10253866.2017.1373253
OpenAlexW2764165996
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas9
Referencias citadas34

Reputation has become a highly valuable commodity in multiple labor markets such as sports, the arts, academia, knowledge work and fashion modelling. While reputation has always played a key role in orienting the decision-making process, what has gained increasing importance are the efforts deployed by a growing number of people to create, develop and manage their individual reputation. Building on a two-year ethnographic study with high profile professional rock climbers, this article analyzes the labor of creating and managing individual reputation. The argument follows that reputational labor revolves around the strategic convergence of work activities enabling the assemblage of concrete and tangible things subtly selected and articulated. The output of this labor, the reputation, is intelligible but has practical implications on everyday work and life that need to be acknowledged and coordinated in order to perform work effectively. Finally, I suggest an operational definition of reputational labor with the aim of providing a framework for analyzing the work tasks involved in reputation building, both directly and indirectly, while acknowledging the role of the context in this process

Argument (complex analysis · Business · Commodity · Context (archaeology · Order (exchange · Political science · Process (computing · Public relations · Reputation · Social science · Sociology · Work (physics · Computer Science · Corporate Identity and Reputation · Engineering · Management and Organizational Studies · Sport and Mega-Event Impacts · Marketing