Psycho-emotional disability in the marketplace

摘要

PurposeThrough 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/approachThis 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.FindingsThe 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/implicationsThis 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 implicationsThe 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/valueExtending 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.