An increasing number of activities in everyday life are being evaluated and experienced in terms of performance metrics. This book examines this assemblage of networks of observation -- in which all are performing and keeping score -- and their attendant emotional pathologies across various industries and occupations.

David Stark is Arthur Lehman Professor of Sociology at Columbia University where he directs the Center on Organizational Innovation. He is also Professor of Social Science at the University of Warwick. His book The Sense of Dissonance: Accounts of Worth in Economic Life (2009) studies how organizations and their members search for what's valuable. Stark's current research is supported by a five-year Advanced Grant from the European Research Council for a project on "Diversity and Performance: Networks of Cognition in Markets and Teams."

• 1: David Stark: The Performance Complex: An Introduction


• Part I. Performance as Competition, Competitions as Performances


• 2: Kristian Kreiner: Pick the Winner, So You Can Then Choose the Reasons: Epistemic Dissonance in Architectural Competitions


• 3: Marco Solaroli: Competition and Consecration in the World Press Photo Awards


• 4: Lisa McCormick: Competitions as Complex Performances


• Part II. Rating performances: Where Do I Stand in the Rankings?


• 5: Wendy Espeland: Formalized Evaluation: The Work That Rankings Do


• 6: Elena Esposito and David Stark: What's Observed in a Rating?: Rankings as Orientation in the Face of Uncertainty


• 7: Will Payne: Crowdsourcing Before the Smartphone: The Zagat Survey's Quantification of Everyday Life in 1980s New York


• 8: Olav Velthuis and Niels van Doorn: Weathering Winner-Take-All. How Rankings Brutally Constitute Competition on Webcam Sex Platforms, and What Performers Can Do About It


• Part III. Performances of Value in Everyday Life


• 9: William Davies: Post-Liberal Competitions?: Pragmatics of Gamification and Weaponisation


• 10: Dominique Cardon: What are Digital Reputation Measures Worth?


• 11: Jonathan Bach: Merit, Morality, and Market: The Chinese Social Credit Experiment


• 12: Robert Prey: Performing Numbers: Musicians and their Metrics


• 13: Fabian Muniesa: Business Education and Anxiety in the Performance of Value