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An Exploratory Study Of Customer Vulnerability: A Cross-Segment Approach, Taryn Aiello

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to explore the concept of customer vulnerability across varying service industries. While the concept of customer vulnerability has been debated in business, marketing, sociology, and psychology scholarly literature, there has been little research conducted that specifically investigates consumers’ perceptions of vulnerability during the service exchange. Specific to this research, customer vulnerability is defined as experiences in which consumers participate in a service exchange with a firm during a time of individual or shared medical, physical, emotional, or spiritual necessity, whether the vulnerability is experienced during the course of the transaction or whether consumers arrive …