Psycho-emotional disability in the marketplace
ISSN: 0309-0566
Article publication date: 1 June 2020
Issue publication date: 1 June 2020
Abstract
Purpose
Through adoption of the psycho-emotional model of disability, this study aims to offer consumer research insight into how the marketplace internally oppresses and psycho-emotionally disables consumers living with impairment.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper draws insight from the interview data of a wider two-year interpretive research study investigating access barriers to marketplaces for consumers living with impairment.
Findings
The overarching contribution offers to consumer research insight into how the marketplace internally oppresses and psycho-emotionally disables consumers living with impairment. Further contributions offered by this paper: unearth the emotion of fear to be central to manifestations of psycho-emotional disability; reveal a broader understanding of the marketplace practices, and core perpetrators, that psycho-emotionally disable consumers living with impairment; and uncover psycho-emotional disability to extend beyond the context of impairment.
Research limitations/implications
This study adopts a UK-only perspective. However, findings uncovered that the model of psycho-emotional disability has wider theoretical value to marketing and consumer research beyond the context of impairment.
Practical implications
The insight offered into the precise marketplace practices that disable consumers living with impairment leads this paper to call for a revising of disability training within marketplace and service contexts.
Originality/value
Extending current consumer research and consumer vulnerability research on disability, the empirical adoption of the psycho-emotional model of disability is a fruitful framework for extrapolating insight into marketplace practices that internally oppress and psycho-emotionally disable consumers living with impairment.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This paper would not have been possible without the kind support from the following. Firstly, thank-you to Lancaster University Management School (LUMS) for funding this research study. Secondly, thank-you to Dr Killian O’Leary for his comments, advice and support during the revision process. Finally, thank-you to the research respondents of this study. In sharing your stories and opening your hearts so fully, you have made this paper a reality.
Citation
Higgins, L. (2020), "Psycho-emotional disability in the marketplace", European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 54 No. 11, pp. 2675-2695. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJM-02-2019-0191
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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