This research is empirical and exploratory in nature. It examines the emergence of a market of underserviced consumers within the U.S. banking subsector of the financial services industry. The aim of this research is to introduce generalizable sociological theory that explains the formation of an underserviced consumer market. This new social theory called Underserviced Consumer Market Formation Theory (UCMFT) is then applied to the U.S. banking subsector of the financial services industry in order to address the research question of, Why has an emerging market of underserviced consumers formed within the U.S. banking subsector of the financial services industry?
In addition to introducing UCMFT to academia, other contributions to knowledge have materialized as a means of explaining this phenomenon and answering the research question of this study. These additional contributions to knowledge are: introducing the term underserviced consumer within the U.S. banking subsector of the financial services industry and introducing a theoretically based explanatory model specific to this subject matter of this research termed the model of underserviced consumer market formation within the U.S. banking subsector of the financial services industry.
Positioning UCMFT for future research and generalizability includes clearly defining the industry being studied, clearly defining the term underserviced consumers in the context of the industry being studied, and empirically identifying and linking the unique psychosocial characteristics to the predominant consumers (buyers) within the industry being studied or encompassed by the research. Potential industries that could be included for future research grounding in UCMFT are healthcare, technology, telecommunications, education, as well as other subsectors within the financial services industry.
Overall, the empirical findings support the creation of the theory and its applicability to the U.S. banking subsector of the financial services industry as scoped for this research.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:GEORGIA/oai:scholarworks.gsu.edu:bus_admin_diss-1046 |
| Date | 10 November 2014 |
| Creators | Staunton, Rebecca |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University |
| Source Sets | Georgia State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Business Administration Dissertations |
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