Infantilized adults or confident consumers?: Enterprise discourse in the UK retail banking industry

Nayak, Ajit and Beckett, Antony (2008) Infantilized adults or confident consumers?: Enterprise discourse in the UK retail banking industry. Organization, 15 (3), 407-425. (doi:10.1177/1350508408088537).

Record type: Article

Abstract

In this paper we examine the implications of enterprise discourse within the context of a culture of consumption. Drawing on empirical work on the UK retail banking industry we demonstrate how retail banking in the UK is central to constructing `confident consumers' in a consumerist society and demonstrate how enterprise and consumption have reframed the interaction between banks and the consumer. We identify a rhizomic network that spans across diverse activities and electronic traces, and a variety of data sources and statistical techniques that mediate between the industry players. We argue that there has been a fundamental shift in rationality from `social obligation' to `confident consumers' which leads to a tension between confident consumers and infantilized adults.

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