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This paper discusses a collaboration between sociologists and optometrists that involved, first, an investigation of communication and interaction in eye examinations and, second, a transformation of the findings into assessable impact. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how from the start of this project close cooperation between academics and practitioners has paved the way for the generation of academic contributions and impact on the teaching and training of optometrists. The authors also briefly discuss how their cooperation has continued since the original research and impact projects to address further issues of relevance to both academics and practicing optometrists.

This research project was developed to maximise the impact of the research by creating a cooperative relationship between social scientists and optometrists. As the research produced its first findings, the team began to create teaching and training material to help optometrists improve their communication skills. The research project was followed by an college of optometrists ESRC (College of Optometrists co-funded) funded Knowledge Exchange project (KEP) that involved members of the research team, the College of Optometrists (CoO) and practicing optometrists. Together, the authors discussed the research finding and how they could be turned into practical impact, such as educational material, of use for optometrists and those teaching and training optometrists.

The focus of our research has been on the opening of eye examination and on the production of a small number of tests conducted to assess patients’ vision. Future research will include a broader variety of tests and particularly explore the closing of eye examinations as here optometrists who are primarily concerned with clinical questions begin to hand over patients to the commercial arm of the practice. Findings from the extension of the collaboration of social scientists and academics will lead to the advancement of teaching and training material published in professional magazines and offered online to the members of the CoO.

The assessable impact developed from the research findings includes articles and assessments published in professional magazines, workshops delivered at optometry conferences, courses on communication in eye examinations taught at university and an online course for members of the CoO. These activities allow practicing optometrists to collect professional development points (CPD) required to continue practicing as optometrists. Based on the KEP, the authors continued to produce CPD material and together with the CoO developed a credit-bearing online course for the College’s members that within the first year had an enrolment of almost 600 optometrists nine months after its publication.

The research and impact case have been used to develop teaching and training material that practicing optometrists use to improve their communication and interaction with patients. Thus, the cooperation between social scientists and optometrists has been effective in contributing to the improvement of a critical health service. Moreover, the project has demonstrated how the close cooperation between social scientists and practitioners in the development and undertaking of a research project can be a powerful way to ensure the practical and social impact of research.

The originality of this paper is grounded in the close cooperation between social scientists and practicing optometrists already at inception of the research project. This cooperation underpins the generation of contributions to academic discourse in the social sciences, such as discussions on interaction in health services, and of practical and social implications. The authors have experienced the cooperation between social scientists and (practicing) optometrists not only as beneficial to the development of assessable impact but also as a project utterly enjoyable and rewarding to all members of the team.

This paper aims to use a video‐taped fragment of conduct and interaction in a museum to illustrate the analysis of visitors' interactionally produced response to works of art.

The method draws on ethnomethodology and conversation analysis to investigate the social and sequential organisation of people's action and interaction. The fragment discussed as part of this paper sheds light on the social and interactional production of people's response to and experience of exhibits.

The detailed analysis of one video‐fragment illustrates how the analysis progresses from an inspection of the sequential organisation of talk to an examination of the sequential organisation of verbal, visual and bodily conduct. The analysis also makes a small substantive contribution to current debates on people's experience of artwork in museums. In particular, the findings suggest that the experience of works of art is not a subjective and cognitive response to the objects, but arises in and through socially organised, embodied practices at the exhibit‐face.

The paper discusses an innovative way to analyze video‐data, and makes a contribution to the growing body of research in arts marketing and museum marketing on the exhibition floor.

The purpose of this paper is to argue that social interaction fundamentally underpins how people examine, experience and make sense of museum exhibits. It seeks to reveal how people collaboratively view and make sense of artwork and other kinds of exhibit, and in particular how the ways of looking at and responding to exhibits arise in social interaction.

The analysis inspects in detail video‐recordings of visitors' conduct and interaction at exhibits. It draws on ethnomethodology and conversation analysis to reveal the social and sequential organisation of people's verbal, visual and bodily action and interaction.

The study finds that people explore museums and examine exhibits with companions while other visitors act and interact in the same locale. Which exhibits visitors look at and how they see and experience them is influenced by and arises in social interaction with others, be they companions or strangers. People display and share their experience of exhibits with others through verbal and bodily action and interaction.

The findings bear on current debates in marketing research. They suggest that there is a lack of understanding of people's experience of exhibits in museums. They show how video‐based studies can address this gap in marketing research. Further studies are currently being conducted to shed light on the quality of people's experience at the exhibit‐face and how it may be enhanced by the deployment of interpretation resources, such as labels, touch‐screen and handheld systems.

The findings may have some implications for the work of curators, designers and exhibition evaluators. They suggest that social interaction needs to be taken into consideration when designing and deploying exhibits and interpretation resources, such as labels, touch‐screen information kiosks, hand‐held computers, etc.

The paper uses visual/video‐recordings as principal data and illustrates its findings by virtue of visual material. It introduces video‐based field studies as a method to examine cultural and visual consumption in museums. It employs an analytic and methodological framework from ethnomethodology and conversation analysis that previously have found little application in marketing and consumer research.

The purpose of this Editorial is to introduce the reader to the changing environment of arts marketing, which poses challenges to researchers and necessitates creative methods of inquiry.

The Editorial introduces the papers in this special issue.

It was found that creative inquiry in arts marketing includes the use of both established and innovative interpretive methods.

The Editorial explains how the application of creative methods of inquiry can aid our understanding of the relationship between art and the market.