Search results

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This paper aims to provide a critical reflection on diversity and inclusion research from the hospitality and tourism literature.

Through conducting a critical reflection, this paper used a thematic analysis focused on integrating the scholarly literature that has developed separately: one focusing on the human resources perspective and another concentrating on customer behavior. This critical reflection bridges the gap between these two perspectives.

The authors develop and offer a research agenda for future research drawing from three areas ripe for future research: human resources management, diversity resistance and marketing. They focus on theory-driven research that has practical applications to make hospitality and tourism more inclusive for both the workforce and consumers.

Meaningful research must be translated into practice, and by addressing these research gaps, organizations can gain insights into diverse worker and customer experiences and create more effective diversity initiatives.

The current literature often lacks an integrated approach that bridges the gap between the two reviewed perspectives: the human resources management and marketing perspectives. A holistic understanding of diversity and inclusion is vital, as it recognizes the interconnectedness between employees and customers within the context of the hospitality and tourism sector is important for several reasons.

The purpose of this study is both to explore how people with “hidden” auditory disorders experience exclusion in servicescapes and to unfold the coping strategies they set up to deal with it.

Findings from 15 semi-structured interviews and participant observations with individuals suffering from auditory disorders are presented through the paper.

The findings indicate that individuals with auditory disorders deploy three types of coping strategies when exposed to sensory overload in servicescapes: choosing between physical servicescapes, opting for electronic devices and e-servicescapes and delegating shopping to relatives.

The study underlines how, through temporary or permanent modifications of servicescape cues, service providers give consumers opportunities to bypass situations involving sensory overload. Implications for e-servicescapes and public policy are also raised.

The findings reveal how the coping strategies used by individuals with auditory disorders contribute to their exclusion from the marketplace on the basis of both individual characteristics and types of servicescapes.

The USA is witnessing a conflict between LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) consumers/supporters and Christian fundamentalist service providers/opponents regarding whether service can be denied based on religious values. The purpose of this paper is to make a timely investigation into this conflict between marketplace inclusion (for LGBTQ consumers) and freedom of religion (for religious service providers).

The intersection of marketplace inclusion for LGBTQ consumers and religious freedom for service providers is examined by identifying appropriate strategies that address this conflict and reviewing how differing religious perspectives influence perceptions of LGBTQ consumer rights, all building off the social identity threat literature.

LGBTQ and religious identities often conflict to influence consumer behavior and service provider interactions. Such conflict is heightened when there is a lack of substitutes (i.e. only one service provider in an area for a specific service). Common LGBTQ consumer responses include changing service providers, providing justification for the provision of services and pursing legal recourse. Suggested strategies to address this conflict include highlighting common social identities and using two-sided messages for service providers, using in-group interventions for social groups and using government interventions for public policy.

Research has yet to examine the conflict between marketplace inclusion and religious freedom, particularly for the inclusion of LGBTQ consumers. Thus, this paper provides a novel conceptual model detailing these relationships to stimulate discussion among consumers, service providers, social groups and public policy in addition to serving as a foundation for future research.

This paper aims to contribute to understandings of the dynamics of marketplace exclusion and explore the benefits of a performative approach to knowledge production.

Interactive documentary theatre is used to explore the pressing issue of marketplace exclusion in a deprived UK city. The authors present a series of three vignettes taken from the performance to explore the embodied and dialogical nature of performative knowledge production.

The performative mode of knowledge production has a series of advantages over the more traditional research approaches used in marketing. It is arguably more authentic, embodied and collaborative. However, this mode of research also has its challenges particularly in the interpretation and presentation of the data.

The paper highlights the implications of performative knowledge production for critical consumer learning. It also explores how the hitherto neglected concept of marketplace exclusion might bring together insights into the mechanics and outcomes of exclusion.

While theatrical and performative metaphors have been widely used to theorise interactions in the marketplace, as yet the possibility of using theatre as a form of inquiry within marketing has been largely neglected. Documentary theatre is revealing of the ways in which marketplace cultures can perpetuate social inequality. Involving local communities in the co-production of knowledge in this way gives them a voice in the policy arena not hitherto fully addressed in the marketing field. Similarly, marketplace exclusion as a concept has been sidelined in favour of marketplace discrimination and consumer vulnerability – the authors think it has the potential to bring these fields together in exploring the range of dynamics involved.

This research seeks to fill a gap in the service and retailing marketplace experience literature as well as retailing practice by extending Attribution and Expectancy Disconfirmation Theories to the large and growing market of consumers with vision disabilities. It reveals how accessibility-related service failures with a retailer's website can lead to anti-firm reactions from blind and low vision consumers, including social media sharing, negative word-of-mouth (NWOM) and avoidance of the retailer's other sales channels even if they are accessible.

Blind respondents were recruited from national blindness organizations to participate in this study using a within-subjects design to test reactions to accessibility-related propositions in two different scenarios involving varying degrees of effort.

In both high- and low-effort conditions, an accessibility-related service failure leads to the anti-firm consequences of NWOM, social media sharing and avoidance of the retailer's sales channels. Additionally, blind and low vision consumers who also feel inaccessible websites are discriminatory develop stronger anti-firm attitudes toward the offending retailers. Further, we aver that the retailer's entire website including all its features, not just the homepage, should be made accessible to the growing market of vision-impaired consumers and thereby obtain substantial competitive advantages.

This research pertains to the service failure and recovery nomological network. It extends the existing paradigm to include accessibility-related service failures experienced by consumers with disabilities into the specialized category of discrimination-based service failures in instances where service recovery is not easily achieved. Empirical investigations of these experiences have been rare, despite the frequency with which they occur.

Access to services for consumers with disabilities (CwD) has gained increased attention from researchers and service providers in recent years. Consequently, ensuring that services are designed and maintained in a manner that is more inclusive and accessible to CwD has become imperative. However, academic literature is fragmented and thus, this study aims to provide a state-of-the-art synthesis for further theoretical development.

This study reviews 77 relevant articles in the domain using a multidisciplinary review following the PRISMA protocol, and a thematic analysis was conducted.

The study thoroughly synthesizes the theories, contexts and methods used in the extant literature. Next, the study presents a new theoretical framework with four broader dimensions: beyond regulations, towards accessibility, value co-creation, inclusion of CwD and role of stakeholders. Furthermore, it highlights the related sub-dimensions attributed to the service design stages (planning, usage and post-usage). Based on this, the study offers critical avenues for future research using the Double Diamond framework.

The study contributes significantly to service design literature for CwD and transformative service research by developing a new consolidated theoretical framework. The findings should direct service providers towards better service designs in related fields. Socially, the study has implications for promoting accessibility and inclusion for CwD, while providing them the freedom of choice.

This paper aims to assess the representation of women of color (WOC) in the top 3 fashion magazines and explore the implications of underrepresentation within marketing communications. The authors draw from diffusion theory and marketplace omission and commission to situate the research focus and highlight its application to the study findings.

A content analysis was conducted on 481 cover models on the top three fashion magazines of 2018 – Vogue, Cosmopolitan and Vanity Fair during 2006–2018.

The findings indicate WOC are underrepresented despite the strides of inclusion in the marketplace in America during a postracial period. Representation is as follows: white – 412 (86%); black – 41 (9%); Latina – 19 (3.9%); biracial 7 (1.5%); Asian – 1 (0.2%); and Native American – 1 (0.2%). Latina models had the lowest representation. Native and Asian women were completely excluded. When they do appear, black and Latina cover models are more likely than white models to be shown wearing sexually suggestive attire.

This study makes four recommendations to promote antiracism in marketing: diversify staff hiring and editorial decision-makers for public-facing talent; solicit counsel from multicultural marketing agencies; create antiracist marketing curriculum; and cultivate a pipeline of diverse talent for future hiring.

The originality of this paper centers its contribution to the dearth research investigating representation implications within the fashion marketing industry during an alleged post-racial period, and a longer time span. It also presents structured antiracist marketing solutions to mitigate underrepresentation.

The purpose of this paper is to explore two financial inclusion measures adopted within the local welfare context of the city of Milan, Italy, examining their functioning and underpinning representations. The aim is also to understand how such representations take concrete shape in the practices of local actors, and their implications for the opportunities and constraints regarding individuals' effective inclusion. To this end, this paper takes a wide-ranging look at the interplay between the rise of financial inclusion and the individualisation and responsibilisation models informing welfare policies, within the broader context of financialisation processes overall.

This paper draws on the sociology of public action approach and provides a qualitative analysis of two case studies, a social microcredit service and a financial education programme, based on direct observation and semi-structured interviews conducted with key policy actors.

This paper sheds light on the rationale behind two financial inclusion services and illustrates how the instruments involved incorporate and tend to reproduce, individualising logics that reduce the problem of financial exclusion, and the social and economic vulnerability which underlies it, to a matter of personal responsibility, thus fuelling depoliticising tendencies in public action. It also discusses the contradictions underlying financial inclusion instruments, showing how local actors negotiate views and strategies on the problems to be addressed.

The paper makes an original contribution to the field of sociology and social policy by focusing on two under-researched instruments of financial inclusion and improving understanding of the finance-welfare state nexus and of the contradictions underpinning attempts at financial inclusion of the most vulnerable.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the dilemma of digital banking and the financial inclusion agenda of countries with the level of strength of the anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) regime.

This study develops an AML/CFT compliance index using the assessment data of FATF to measure the level compliance strength of countries to measure the impact of the strength of the AML/CFT regime on the financial inclusion. Financial literacy, literacy, number of bank branches and income level of countries are used as other control variables in regression analysis, which is used to test the developed model.

The results suggest that the AML/CFT compliance level of a country is a significant factor in determining the level of financial inclusion. Besides, the number of bank branches for 100,000 people, literacy and financial literacy are significant factors in financial inclusion. However, the results reveal that financial literacy is significant over literacy in determining financial inclusion. Therefore, having considered the importance of the AML/CFT regime for financial inclusion, regulators are required to strengthen the AML/CFT regime and make clarity on the AML/CFT regulations. This clarity will promote the digitalization and financial inclusion over time.

Most of the studies related to financial inclusion and AML/CFT aspects are qualitative. Therefore, this is only the start of measuring the strength of an AML/CFT regime. More appropriate measures will be developed in the future based on this foundation.

This paper is an original work done by the author, which discusses the issues of digital banking and financial inclusion agenda of countries with the compliance strength of the AML/CFT regime. The AML/CFT compliance index is the original idea of the author, which can be used as a quantitative measure to capture the strength of the AML/CFT regimes in future studies.