A couple of excellent points on the need to define...anything

Doling (1999) made a few great points in the conclusion section of the paper entitled "De-commodification and welfare: evaluating housing systems," Published in Housing, Theory and Society, 16(4), 156-164. The paper does tackle commodification and de-commodification, but the points he makes apply to the need to create operational definitions of most any term being used in research. 

1. The conclusions reached in a given study are prisoners to the operational definition being used (Definitions [conceptualizations] matter-- because conclusions usually rest upon them in some way.)
• Different operationalizations can lead to different outcomes in a study. (The way something is measured or assessed may be different based on the operationalization being used. Consequently, what really underlies this project ["The need to define commodification"] may be best expressed as "the need for adequate, clear and mutually accessible conceptualizations of commodification" so that results of studies will be more intentional and more accessible to scholars in a broad array of disciplines.) 
2. "Operational definitions can almost always be criticised." (Any project on the need to define a certain term may do well to recognize that a synthesis of the current literature may be more effective than some final, declarative statement about operationalizations. Each study has to have its own operationalization, but can be much enhanced by knowing where that operationalization is situated in the rest of the academic conversation.)

The issue is that, in literature about commodification, there is often a complete lack of conceptualization (or of a working definition), or such a definition limits what commodification is (often to either an exclusively Marxist or exclusively business definition) or shuts it off from other scholars of commodification in other disciplines. 

This is a problem given the abundant evidence that so many scholars wish to use commodification in a broader way that spans the meaning of commodification rather than using it in a way that is exclusively Marxist or exclusively business driven. Many scholars recognize the way both are present in their observations and wish to write about it in a way that does justice to that phenomenon, yet currently no single definition seems to accomplish that job. While there may be many possible definitions that fill that need, one thing is clear: It would be useful to have a synthesis on the literature of commodification that provides a foundation for creation of operational definitions that will fill this need.