Purpose and Scope of the Theory
Value Management Theory (VMT) is a descriptive theory intended for the formal analysis of value and anti-value in socio-economic systems.
Its primary goal is to provide a coherent conceptual framework for describing how value emerges, is transmitted, consumed, transformed, accumulated, and lost within and between systems of interacting actors.
VMT introduces a minimal and self-consistent conceptual apparatus (ontology), formulates a set of foundational statements (axioms), and derives a system of theorems that together make it possible to:
- interpret value as a context-dependent phenomenon, defined only within a specific value system;
- describe the dynamic movement of value through flows between actors;
- distinguish planned value (the sender’s interpretation) from realized value (the receiver’s interpretation);
- treat transformation as a role, rather than as an intrinsic property of an actor;
- formalize system sustainability through participation conditions and the presence of necessary transformation roles;
- analyze inter-system interactions, external flows, leakage, resistance, and structural dependencies.
The theory is explicitly non-normative: it does not prescribe how value should be created or distributed, but instead provides a language for explaining how value dynamics actually operate in complex systems.
Positioning of VMT
VMT is designed for situations in which value and anti-value cannot be reduced to market prices or profit alone. Typical examples include:
- internal organizational systems;
- multi-stage production and consumption structures;
- socio-technical systems;
- institutional and public systems.
In such contexts it is often necessary to formally distinguish between:
- expected (planned) value - the interpretation of the sender;
- realized value - the interpretation of the receiver;
- retrospective value - a later re-evaluation of previously realized value.
VMT explicitly allows for actors to be:
- pure consumers of value;
- transformers of value (as a role);
- external to the system under analysis.
This makes the theory applicable to a broad class of socio-economic configurations, without assuming symmetry of interests, information, or interpretation.
Relation to Economic Theory
VMT does not replace classical economic theories. Instead, it complements them by focusing on aspects that are often implicit, abstracted away, or treated indirectly.
Traditional economic frameworks typically express "value" through:
- preferences and utility (consumer theory);
- prices and equilibrium (general equilibrium theory);
- production functions;
- institutions, property rights, and transaction costs (theory of the firm, institutional economics);
- incentives and information asymmetry (contract and agency theory).
VMT remains compatible with these approaches, but introduces a different analytical focus:
value as an interpreted change of state within a system, rather than as a scalar quantity derived from prices or utility functions.
This shift allows VMT to describe phenomena such as:
- systematic divergence between expectations and outcomes;
- accumulation of anti-value;
- degradation of system capability despite local optimization;
- inter-system leakage and dependence;
- absence of any universal conservation law for value.
Explicit Limitations of the Theory
VMT deliberately does not aim to:
- derive market prices or predict equilibrium price vectors;
- provide a universal metric for comparing welfare across different value systems;
- replace contract theory, institutional economics, or theories of the firm.
Any inter-system comparison of value requires an explicit translation rule, which lies outside the theory itself.
In this sense, VMT should be understood as a foundational descriptive framework: it supplies a precise language for reasoning about value dynamics, upon which methodological, empirical, or normative layers may later be built.