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Consumer Financial Anxiety: Us Regional Financial Service Firms’ Trust Building Response To The Financial Crisis, Devon Johnson, Mark Peterson

Department of Marketing Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Purpose–The purpose of this paper is to examine how small and medium-sized, regional financial service firms reacted to the financial crisis by helping their customers cope with their heightened state financial anxiety during the Economic Crisis of 2008. It also examines the variety of strategies pursued by these firms to rebuild consumer trust in their brands in the ensuing years. Design/methodology/approach–The authors relied on grounded theory as a methodological approach to understand the unfolding situation of the financial crisis and to inductively develop a framework explainingmanagers’ experience with consumer financial anxiety and trust. Data collection involved key informant interviews with …