Inaugural lectures
Wednesday 8th December at 5pm - Lecture theatre SMB.0.14, Stewart Mason Building
Mutually Contradictory Spaces: Negotiating Virtual Spaces of Consumption
Professor Angus Laing, School of Business and Economics
The internet driven information revolution is frequently cited as one of the key drivers (re-)shaping contemporary consumption. In particular the internet has been seen as disrupting established conventions in professional services.
Popularly, it has been viewed as a liberating medium, a mechanism by which consumers and citizens have been able to challenge the authority of the professional establishment.
Yet research evidence across a range of sectors suggests that consumers seeking to negotiate a new settlement with professionals and reconfigure the service encounter are not only presented with new opportunities but also new uncertainties and challenges. This is due to the intrinsically multi-dimensional and multi-layered nature of the internet and the new informational spaces it creates.
Balancing the paradoxes created by these emergent informational spaces is at the core of the challenge confronting contemporary service consumers. Irrespective of the nature of that space, the effect is to create a driver for change, challenging the established practices of both consumer and professional to reshape the service encounter.