Improving Service Encounters through Resource Sensitivity: The Case of Health Care Delivery in an Appalachian Community

Abstract

Pierre Bourdieu's work on the political economy of symbolic power is particularly relevant to marketing and public policy aimed at ameliorating consumer vulnerability and persistent social inequities. This theoretical framework highlights various resources, or capital, that individuals possess and how these resources (or lack of) affect power relations. The authors use an ethnographic study of women's health care encounters in a rural Appalachian coal mining community to explore and demonstrate the usefulness of this approach. Specifically, in some health care encounters, social inequality is reinforced through the interplay of different forms of capital between the service provider and consumer. However, practices that are sensitive to capital increase the possibility of more successful and just service encounters. In this article, the authors examine health care practices that are resource sensitive and insensitive and offer recommendations.

Towards a history of critical marketing studies

“…Such views continue to be espoused by scholars who demand that we should not only produce knowledge for marketing managers but for all stakeholders (e.g. Bazerman, 2001;Cherrier, 2009;Denzin, 2001;Dobscha & Ozanne, 2008;Lee, Ozanne, & Hill, 1999;Mari, 2008;Ozanne & Saatcioglu, 2008;Ozanne, Hill, & Wright, 1998;Peñaloza & Venkatesh, 2006).…”

“…Alongside such a de-emphasis of the 'channel-captain' perspective (Arndt, 1985b), the view of the consumer (Bradshaw & Holbrook, 2008;Hodgson, 2002;Ozanne & Saatcioglu, 2008;Schor, 2007;Varman & Vikas, 2007a, 2007b, or service employee (Lee et al, 1999;Skålén & Fougère, 2007) in critical marketing studies appears to be less voluntaristic than in interpretive or other forms of marketing scholarship (Borgerson & Schroeder, 2002;Catterall et al, 2005). This, in effect, reflects the critical marketing view that we should be cautious in valorising agency -especially agency that is enacted through some sort of consumption (see Kilbourne, 1991;Peñaloza, 1994, p. 46-47).…”

“…political belief systems, socio-economic inequality, gender relations, etc) and agency (i.e. reflexive consumer behaviour) (see also Lee et al, 1999;Varman & Belk, 2009;Zhao & Belk, 2008). They comment upon the fact that poor (black) consumers often face higher grocery bills as a result of poor distribution and limited access to large chain stores.…”

A community psychology of object meanings: Identity negotiation during disaster recovery

“…We showed how some positions were privileged and winners and losers were determined in different types of situations. Ultimately, we see that material goods, and the processes used to enact them, enhance some identities while denigrating others (see also Lee, Ozanne, & Hill, 1999).…”

Disadvantaged Consumers: An Ethical Approach to Consumption by the Poor

“…She eventually joins the welfare rolls only to find that the level of support is too low for her family to survive. Lee et al (1999) inform the rural poverty short story, and it describes a two-year long research project that was conducted in the Appalachian Mountains with women seeking healthcare services. This telling centers on Tammy and her mother and their lives in a former coalmining town.…”