The term ‘consumption experience’ has become ubiquitous in
marketing and consumer research circles. In this thesis I question
the appropriateness of this canonical term. In its stead I employ the
non-dualistic term ‘experiaction’, coined by an ecological
psychologist, which points to the functional inseparability of
experiencing and actions.
I adopt a field-theoretical, phenomenologically-informed,
perspective, whilst participating in, analysing, and writing about ten
video-recorded research conversations. Likewise I address the
various spin-off texts deriving from the initial conversations, such as
transcripts and viewing-logs. I show that ‘field’-embedded
individuals notice and act on many aspects of their immediate
micro-environments, including their own intra-personal goings-on
and expressive outputs.
Through data analysis I identify five categories of regulable
variables that an individual can act on as s/he seeks to regulate
his/her sensing, relative to his/her reference value(s). Seen through
this cybernetic lens, momentary human being comprises of a
cyclical, ongoing process of self-regulation, in which individuals expediently employ and/or modify accessible resources and goings-on, in the service of seeking to actualise their currently-preferred, or expected, states-of-being, and to minimise unwelcome deviations therefrom.
This thesis challenges the prevalent notion that when people consume particular products/services these offerings sponsor offering-dedicated experiences - what some people describe as ‘consumption experiences’. The concept of experiaction, in contrast, comprises of an ongoing interaction between a person and his/her micro-environment, in which the individual attends to, and acts on, whichever aspect(s) of his/her 360°-‘inner’-‘outer’-‘field’ become(s) momentarily salient to him/her, within the parameters imposed by his/her currently-sustained reference value(s).
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/6462 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Woodward, Michael N. |
| Contributors | Larsen, Gretchen, Whitelock, Jeryl M., Fastoso, Fernando, Harding, Nancy H., Cornelius, Nelarine |
| Publisher | University of Bradford, School of Management |
| Source Sets | Bradford Scholars |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, doctoral, PhD |
| Rights | <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/3.0/88x31.png" /></a><br />The University of Bradford theses are licenced under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/">Creative Commons Licence</a>. |
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