Deregulation and the emergence of new forms of technology have created highly competitive market conditions which have had a critical impact upon consumer behaviour. Bank providers must, therefore, attempt to better understand their customers in an attempt not only to anticipate but also to...

This paper seeks to develop our understanding of consumer attitudes towards bank delivery channels. Accordingly, a questionnaire was designed to obtain information about which delivery channels consumers had used when acquiring four types of financial service. This information was then...

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to examine bank customer involvement and the importance of risk when contemplating the purchase of financial products. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is a discussion of the literature on customer involvement, risk and interaction forms the basis...

Relationship marketing and its application to retail banking has become a common theme in managerial and academic literature. This article argues that the rhetoric of relationship marketing has been used to obscure banks' real strategic objective, cost reduction. Those cost reductions have been...

As competitive liberalisation and the application of technology in the creation and distribution of financial services have increased consumer choice in the UK personal financial service industry, so consumer choice in the UK personal financial services industry, so consumer behaviour has...

This paper explores the social dynamics by means of which market forces are enacted at the level of everyday consumption. In particular, it draws on Holt's (2002) notion that as 'unruly bricoleurs', consumers kick-start processes of market adjustment and innovation through improvising ways to...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce the special issue that critically examines topics informing long‐standing disputes concering the status of theory and practice in management studies. Contributions explore the character of the imputed relationship between theory and...

Summary The paper discusses the constitution of the consuming subject in lifestyle practices of belonging and difference, taste and choice in the material circumstances of everyday living. It considers how lived moments of mundane activity can be understood, not simply as sites of social...