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1 – 4 of 4Katharina C. Husemann, Anica Zeyen and Leighanne Higgins
This study aims to explore the strategies that service providers use to facilitate marketplace accessibility, and identify the key challenges in that process. The authors do so to…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the strategies that service providers use to facilitate marketplace accessibility, and identify the key challenges in that process. The authors do so to develop a roadmap towards improved accessibility and disability inclusion in the marketplace.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted eight semi-structured interviews with service providers (curators, visitor service coordinators and access managers) at museums who run access programmes for customers with visual impairment (VI), along with an embodied duo-ethnography of those programmes.
Findings
Service providers foster autonomous, embodied and social access. Resource constraints, safety concerns and exposed differences between customers compromise access. To overcome these challenges, service providers engage in three inclusionary strategies – informing, extending and sensitizing.
Research limitations/implications
This service provider- and VI-focus present limitations. Future research should consider a poly-vocal approach that includes the experiences of numerous stakeholders to holistically advance marketplace accessibility; and apply the marketplace accessibility findings upon different disabilities in other marketplace contexts.
Practical implications
This study offers a roadmap for policymakers and service providers on: which types of access should and can be created; what challenges may be encountered; how to manage these challenges; and, thus, how to advance accessibility beyond regulations.
Originality/value
This study contributes a service provider perspective on marketplace accessibility that goes beyond removing “disabling” barriers towards creating opportunities for co-creation; an approach towards marketplace accessibility that fosters inclusiveness while considering the inherent challenges of that process; and an illustration of posthumanism’s empirical value in addressing issues of accessibility in the marketplace.
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Johanna Klewitz, Anica Zeyen and Erik G. Hansen
The purpose of this paper is to identify the role intermediaries can play in an small to medium‐sized enterprise's (SME's) pursuit for corporate sustainability with a focus on…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify the role intermediaries can play in an small to medium‐sized enterprise's (SME's) pursuit for corporate sustainability with a focus on eco‐innovation. The research identifies drivers and barriers for eco‐innovation, and highlights effects induced through collaboration between SMEs and local authorities, on the one hand, and consultancies, on the other.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is based on an exploratory qualitative interview study among German SMEs of the metal and mechanical engineering industry that have participated in “Ecoprofit”, an intermediary based program that aims at introducing organizations to the concept of sustainable development through implementation of eco‐innovations.
Findings
The key findings are that first, the proactive approach by a public intermediary (here local authority) is one essential push factor to trigger eco‐innovations in SMEs with low absorptive capacity. Second, it is found that SMEs may need facilitation for eco‐innovation from different types of intermediaries (public and private) with different levels of support, which can range from customized and individual to more loosely held support, such as networks.
Originality/value
This study discusses the challenges of corporate sustainability with a focus on eco‐innovations for SMEs and proposes a “complex intermediary” consisting of a local authority and consultancies as one means to engage SMEs in sustainability. Moreover, it focuses on SMEs in the B2B context, organizations that are often overlooked despite their vast impact. Furthermore, by using a single industry approach, in‐depth findings for the metal and mechanical engineering industry are presented.
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