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Differentiating consumers in professional services: information, empowerment and the emergence of the fragmented consumer

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posted on 2023-06-09, 06:50 authored by Angus Laing, Gill Hogg, Terry Newholm, Debbie KeelingDebbie Keeling
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.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Publisher

Policy Press

Page range

77-98

Pages

289.0

Book title

The consumer in public services: choices, values and difference

Place of publication

Bristol

ISBN

9781847421814

Department affiliated with

  • Business and Management Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Editors

Richard Simmons, Martin Powell, Ian Greener

Legacy Posted Date

2017-06-20

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    University of Sussex (Publications)

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