By Ari-Matti Erjansola
This essay discusses the plural nature of value in business, arguing that value is not fixed or purely economic but relational and shaped by context and culture. Drawing on marketing, psychology, and economics, it shows how people assign worth and helps businesses to value in financial and social terms.
“Anything capable of being appreciated (wished for) is a value.” — Park & Burgess
The concept of value is central to business and economic thinking, yet it remains surprisingly elusive. Markets typically treat value as objective and price-based, but in practice, people often prioritize other considerations. From emotional attachments — such as loyalty to a long-time supplier despite cheaper options — to moral convictions, like supporting a politically sensitive cause that risks reputational damage, and aesthetic preferences, such as insisting on a particular shade of product packaging because it “feels right” even though it tests poorly in focus groups, people routinely value things that defy market logic. As Park and Burgess noted nearly a century ago, value is not inherent in objects but found in their capacity to be appreciated.
Even within business itself, the term value has contradictory meanings. In branding, for example, authors have distinguished between brand value — a financial measure of how much a brand contributes to a firm’s market value — and brand equity — a consumer-centric concept based on perceptions, emotions, and cultural meanings. Brand value may show up on a balance sheet, while brand equity lives in people’s heads. This distinction already suggests what this essay will argue: that value is plural, contingent, and identity-bound. It cannot be reduced to price or utility, but must be understood as a socially and psychologically embedded phenomenon.
From customer value to socially embedded valuations
In business and marketing discourse, “creating value” is often shorthand for increasing performance, efficiency, or distinctiveness. A basic assumption here is that value can be designed and delivered. A common way to approach this is to distinguish four types of customer value: functional, experiential, symbolic, and cost-based. Functional value refers to how effectively a product or service performs its intended purpose, while experiential value focuses on the emotional and sensory responses it evokes. Symbolic value, on the other hand, reflects the psychological meanings people associate with it, while cost or sacrifice value involves the perceived effort, time, or money required to obtain or use the product, emphasizing an objective price and subjective trade-offs.
These categories are rarely isolated in practice, and a single product can often address multiple types of value. A car can for example transport people reliably, provide experiences through its design and driving characteristics, meet symbolic needs by expressing various identities, such as environmental friendliness, safety and responsibility or freedom and youthfulness.
Both in marketing and economics, value is, however, increasingly approached not as an inherent feature of a product, but as something constructed in a cultural context through interpretation and use. Reflecting the distinction between brand value and brand equity, consumption is viewed not as simply a response to needs, but a way to construct identity and navigate social worlds. Value is subjective, and experienced individually in co-creation between the firm and the customer. The symbolic meaning and the corresponding economic value of a product are thus shaped by the norms, shared beliefs, and social relations of those acquiring it. Someone who is environmentally conscious may find added value in purchasing second-hand, while the very same product might be rejected when sold new. This highlights how utility of a product can become disconnected from functional considerations due to identity-based needs.
For any business, a key consideration is this distinction between financial and perceived value. As value is subjective, price considerations tend to be reference-dependent and bound to evaluations of the fairness of the deal and how the evaluator categorizes the investment, depending on expectations, prior experiences, and how the overall situation is presented and perceived. Owners of electric cars have had firsthand experience of this through price cuts. While lower prices make the segment more accessible, they can also trigger feelings of unfairness and diminish the symbolic and identity-based value that early adopters associated with their purchase. While the material utility of the car remains the same, its value as a marker of identity and group membership may decline as the product becomes more commonplace and less distinctive within the social category it once signified. Financial and perceived value are thus closely intertwined, but not necessarily aligned.
If we move from this business perspective to the multiplicity of human needs, we of course realize that behind each of these value types lie diverse needs, desires, and motivations. Two customers may disagree on whether food should be valued for its authenticity or its ease of use. Both may agree that it should reflect their identity, but differ in what that means. For one, buying organic ingredients from a local producer may signal self-discipline, health, or a sustainable lifestyle, while for another, choosing a ready-made supermarket meal may reflect practicality and ease-of-use. The value in these judgments lies in the eye of the beholder.
The psychology of values
A potential psychological explanation for this variation comes from Schwartz’s theory of basic human values, which identifies ten universal values clustered into four higher-order orientations. These orientations are organized along two dimensions, i.e. openness to change versus conservation, and self-enhancement versus self-transcendence. Prioritizing one orientation typically involves downplaying the other — for example, valuing tradition may conflict with novelty, just as striving for personal status may be at odds with commitments to equality. Similar logic often applies in business, where positioning requires making choices instead of appealing to everyone.
The value types from functional utility to symbolic and identity-based meaning illustrate how people prioritize differently. Furthermore, the differences align with basic human values: we can emphasize what is familiar and reliable, what is novel or self-expressive, or we can be guided by ideals, such as fairness, loyalty, or efficiency. These orientations also shape how we evaluate worth. Rather than assessing value in absolute terms, we compare against what we expect, what others have, and take the social context of the transaction into account. Our position and identity influence the reference points we use, and in turn, how fair, desirable, or costly something feels.
Understanding what people value means understanding who they are and what they seek to express. For someone who values security, functional reliability and predictability may matter most. Those drawn to excitement or self-expression may expect novelty, aesthetics, or emotional richness. If achievement is the priority, value may be found in performance, distinctiveness, or signals of success. Cost and sacrifice may be valued not only financially, but also in what they communicate. Buying second-hand can express sustainability or restraint, while paying full price may feel like a privilege or a burden, depending on the frame. A supermarket meal might reflect efficiency or pragmatism. An electric car can express an environmental identity, but lose that meaning if it becomes too commonplace. While products, prices, and brands all carry value cues, they need to align with how the targeted customers see themselves.
Taken together, the frameworks explored in this essay support a pluralistic view of value — one that acknowledges that value is not objective or fixed, but shaped by context, culture, and identity. Market price can be a poor proxy for symbolic, experiential, or identity-relevant worth when what is perceived as desirable, legitimate, or even offensive is filtered through the lens of social belonging and self-understanding. And while companies strive to craft value through features or design, value is always co-created, emerging through use and interpretation.
This also helps explain why value is often contested. What one group finds meaningful or admirable, another may find trivial or even harmful. Value creation is thus never a strictly technical or economic task, but a social, cultural, and political one.
Conclusion on value
“Anything capable of being appreciated (wished for) is a value,” wrote Park and Burgess — a reminder that value is not fixed in things, but in how they are experienced. This helps explain the frequent disconnect between what is considered valuable in economic terms and what people actually find meaningful. A product may be priced high yet fail to resonate; another may offer little financial return but carry personal or symbolic weight. Value is not simply measured — it is felt, interpreted, and situated in context.
Social science perspectives help explain why. Findings from psychology, marketing, and economics all point to the same insight: what people consider valuable depends on who they are, what they believe, and what is their social context. From this perspective, “adding value” means aligning these subjective valuations with the economic or strategic goals of a product, service, or institution — making something matter in ways that are both emotionally and organizationally significant.
This understanding has consequences for businesses. Attention should shift from features to social fit, i.e. from what a product does to how it connects with customers, by considering who they are, what they value, and how their needs are met. Businesses need to understand identity motives, anticipate trade-offs, and align products, prices, and brand narratives with the way their customers see themselves. For some, functions may carry deeper significance, while others prioritize novelty, aesthetics, or moral alignment. Even pricing decisions are never neutral, as they shape perceptions and are affected by expectations and contextual factors. Value, then, is not a property, but a relation — and to understand it is to ask not only what something is worth, but to whom, why, and in what context.
Ari-Matti Erjansola
