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Социальное конструирование качества на московском рынке стоматологических услуг
The act of purchase and sale cannot be realized without product quality evaluation and price reasonableness analysis. In this respect, the processes of definition, stabilization and institutionalization of categories, revealing the contents of goods become of key importance in the framework of contemporary markets. This article reconstructs categories which operationalize the content and quality of Moscow dental market health services and reveals the social order effective there. The article non only analyzes the content of commercial clinics marketing efforts directed at qualifications of their services, but the representation of the quality of the different participants in this market (doctors, managers of clinics and patients) as well. Special attention is given to the way the patients evaluate medical services quality while choosing a clinic. Based on the data of clinics’ websites and in-depth interviews with market participants it can be concluded that there is no quality criteria consensus on the studied market. According to respondents with different background the success of a dental treatment depends on the professionalism of the doctor. And the latter is perceived as the motivation towards professional activity highlighting rendering services to patients rather than skill and experience level. As far as doctors are concerned, the quality of dental services requires integrated approach to treatment contributing to general maintaining of a person’s health. However, patients often come to a clinic when dental problems cannot be longer ignored, and they want to solve them quickly, permanently and in line with modern ideas about how healthy teeth should look like. At the same time no matter how much effort the clinic invests into explanation of its competitive advantages, the customers prefer to trust someone from their reference group who had already experienced the quality of dental services with their body and wallet. Although, the investments clinics make into the qualification of quality in the market are not in vain. The patients use their market discourse cognitive categories both when asking details about the clinic from friends and if doubting the reasonableness of the price paid for the treatment. Thus, the dental market conventional lexicon is defined by parameters that comprise dental services and constitute their quality.