Laing, Angus, Hogg, Gill, Newholm, Terry and Keeling, Debbie (2009) Differentiating consumers in professional services: information, empowerment and the emergence of the fragmented consumer. In: Simmons, Richard, Powell, Martin and Greener, Ian (eds.) The consumer in public services: choices, values and difference. Policy Press, Bristol, pp. 77-98. ISBN 9781847421814

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Abstract

This book challenges existing stereotypes about the ‘consumer as chooser’. It shows how we must develop a more sophisticated understanding of consumers, examining their place and role as users of public services. The analysis shows that there are many different ‘faces’ of the consumer and that it is not easy to categorise users in particular environments. Drawing on empirical research, the book critiques established assumptions surrounding citizenship and consumption. Choice may grab the policy headlines, but other essential values are revealed as important throughout the book. One issue concerns the ‘subjects’ of consumerism, or who it is that presents themselves when they come to use public services. Another concerns consumer ‘mechanisms’, or the ways that public services try to relate to these people. Bringing these issues together, with contributions from a range of leading researchers, the message is that today's public services must learn to cope with a differentiated public.

Item Type:	Book Section
Schools and Departments:	School of Business, Management and Economics > Business and Management
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
Depositing User:	Debbie Keeling
Date Deposited:	20 Jun 2017 08:20
Last Modified:	20 Jun 2017 08:20
URI:	http://srodev.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/68747

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