Research

Consumer behavior in consequential service encounters

I study how people interpret expertise, navigate institutional interactions, and make decisions in settings with meaningful personal or societal consequences.

A broader interdisciplinary platform

My research sits at the intersection of consumer behavior, consequential service encounters, healthcare, expert guidance, and public policy. The organizing question is not limited to one industry or one outcome: what happens when consumers must make sense of consequential interactions with experts and institutions?

This platform creates room to study patient experience, information interpretation, responses to advice, institutional decision-making, and service encounters in which uncertainty and asymmetry of expertise are especially important.

Consumer behaviorConsequential service encountersHealthcareExpert advicePublic policyMeasurement development

Flagship program: Medical dismissal

Medical dismissal is a patient-perceived healthcare experience in which a person feels that their symptoms, concerns, credibility, or lived experience were not given appropriate consideration during a healthcare encounter.

The program treats medical dismissal as a distinct encounter-level consumer experience rather than a synonym for general dissatisfaction or every negative healthcare outcome. The goal is to develop a conceptually clear and responsibly measured construct that can support research across marketing, patient experience, healthcare quality, and public policy.

Why encounter-level measurement matters: broad experience questions may overlook a specific invalidating interaction. A carefully bounded measure could make it possible to study these encounters with greater precision while avoiding conclusions the evidence cannot yet support.

Broad research objectives

01

Define and measure the experience

Develop a distinct encounter-level approach to studying patient-perceived medical dismissal.

02

Examine potential downstream effects

Study how these experiences may shape later health-information interpretation and responses to expert guidance.

Current stage

The program is in construct and measurement development, informed by qualitative research and doctoral preparation in theory building, applied measurement, qualitative methods, and advanced marketing scholarship. Public materials intentionally omit unpublished items, scoring rules, models, hypotheses, recruitment specifications, and detailed study procedures.

Methods and methodological direction

Qualitative inquiry

Experience with interview-based exploration, systematic coding, thematic analysis, and concept development.

Theory and construct development

Building conceptually bounded constructs and connecting theory to testable measurement models.

Quantitative research

Developing survey-analysis and quantitative capabilities for scale evaluation, relationship testing, and predictive assessment.

Experimental research

Extending the program toward controlled designs that can examine causal mechanisms and behavioral responses.

Consumer research

Theory-driven questions about information interpretation, decision-making, expert guidance, and behavior in consequential service systems.

Interdisciplinary translation

Connecting marketing theory with healthcare quality, patient experience, public policy, and organizational practice.

Research partnership priorities

Complementary expertise and resources can strengthen this program without changing its consumer-research foundation. Priority connections include healthcare and health-services scholars, clinicians, patient-experience researchers, public-policy scholars, psychometricians, data partners, research sites, and funders interested in rigorous, socially meaningful measurement.

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