| Popis: |
Through a review of adherence literature and thirty qualitative interviews, a theoretical view of the adherence process has been created which enables an understanding of the process from initial awareness of need through to post-consumption assessment. This view is proposed to answer the research question, what is adherence from a process perspective? It builds on Service-Dominant Logic to theorise the act of adherence for the first time. In this it views adherence as a complex relationship of interacting service (eco)systems. This takes the theoretical understanding of adherence beyond existing theories and models and into the act of consumption itself, thus providing theoretical visibility of the end-to-end process of adherence. The literature review and qualitative research identified six factors of adherence and three rules governing the adherence process. Perhaps surprisingly, interviews found little difference in causes of non-adherence between developed and developing worlds. A quantitative survey operationalised these adherence factors and rules through the development of a quantitative process of adherence derived from the qualitative process. However, due to survey limitations this research provided no additional insights. A new viewpoint on adherence is advanced. This considers adherence as a single act and therefore as an individual opportunity to be adherent. This permits a greater focus on the enablers and inhibitors of adherence at a point in time rather than it being averaged over many acts in different situations. It also includes a discussion of managerial implications, proposals for future research, and thoughts on research limitations. |
