Beth DuFault | University of California, Los Angeles (original) (raw)

Papers by Beth DuFault

Research paper thumbnail of Simplifying Complexity to Reveal the Profound

Journal of customer behaviour, May 20, 2024

Research paper thumbnail of Catch of the day: How a social enterprise based on fishing helped Newfoundlanders reanimate their cultural identity

˜The œsociological review. Magazine, Feb 6, 2024

Research paper thumbnail of Self Quantification and the Datapreneurial Consumer Identity

Consumption Markets & Culture, 2018

This study delivers a clearer understanding of the constitution of the datapreneurial consumer, t... more This study delivers a clearer understanding of the constitution of the datapreneurial consumer, the role of the market in that construction, and the implications for consumer identity projects in the age of Big Data and an increasingly data- and surveillance-driven society. The study uses a theoretical framework of the “quantified self” (QS) to examine consumers (re)building creditworthiness. In the context of a major online credit-user forum, it employs creative-nonfiction methodology to protect forum-member privacy. To the literature on creditworthiness, the study contributes a process model of the construction of the datapreneurial credit consumer identity. To the QS literature, it offers insight into how consumers may embrace quantification and self-tracking, even in areas where they are nudged or pushed into it. To the sociology of quantification literature, it adds empirics to explain how consumers may embrace market-provided self-quantification resources in attempts to liberate themselves from the structural control of that very quantification.

Research paper thumbnail of Changing the Script: Family Collectivity Formation in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

ACR North American Advances, 2014

Research paper thumbnail of The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit As an Assembled Servicescape: How Do Technological Actors Affect Parent/Staff Decision-Making?

ACR North American Advances, 2016

Research paper thumbnail of Ontological Flattening, Vibrant Matter and Consumption: Sending Canonical Theories Back to School

ACR North American Advances, 2015

Research paper thumbnail of Leaving an identity-central community of practice

Research paper thumbnail of Turning the Titanic: Creating Consumer-Centric Cultures and Improved Consumer Experience in Large, Established Health Care Systems

ACR North American Advances, 2018

Research paper thumbnail of Maven 2.0: the Newly Assembled Interactive Ex-Pat Market Maven

ACR North American Advances, 2015

Research paper thumbnail of Social Enterprise as a Broker of Identity Resources

Sustainability, 2022

Social enterprises often transmit pro-social values to their staff, volunteers, stakeholders, and... more Social enterprises often transmit pro-social values to their staff, volunteers, stakeholders, and communities. Research also shows that social enterprises can improve aspects of beneficiaries’ identity and self-worth. However, knowledge about identity-construction dynamics among social enterprises, their founders and other stakeholders, and the communities and cultures in which they are situated is undertheorized and fragmented across fields. This is attributable, at least in part, to the lack of a theory that can explain identity construction across micro-individual, meso-organizational, and macro-cultural levels. This study makes two major contributions. First, we advance a novel, multi-level theoretical framework for understanding identity construction based on assemblage theory. Second, we use that framework to interpret data from our ethnographic study of a social enterprise based in a Canadian fishing village. Our study reveals that the social enterprise actively curates ident...

Research paper thumbnail of Home for Christmas

Journal of Customer Behaviour

Research paper thumbnail of Self-quantification and the datapreneurial consumer identity

Consumption Markets & Culture

Research paper thumbnail of The Marketization of Religion: Field, Capital, and Consumer Identity

Journal of Consumer Research, 2014

Certain institutions traditionally have had broad socializing influence over their members, provi... more Certain institutions traditionally have had broad socializing influence over their members, providing templates for identity that comprehend all aspects of life from the existential and moral to the mundanely material. Marketization and detraditionalization undermine that socializing role. This study examines the consequences when, for some members, such an institution loses its authority to structure identity. With a hermeneutical method and a perspective grounded in Bourdieu’s theories of fields and capital, this research investigates the experiences of disaffected members of a religious institution and consumption field. Consumers face severe crises of identity and the need to rebuild their self-understandings in an unfamiliar marketplace of identity resources. Unable to remain comfortably in the field of their primary socialization, they are nevertheless bound to it by investments in field-specific capital. In negotiating this dilemma, they demonstrate the inseparability and co-constitutive nature of ideology and consumption.

Research paper thumbnail of Millennials and Boomers: increasing alumni affinity and intent to give by target market segmentation

International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, 2015

Research paper thumbnail of Residential Diversity and Division

The Uncertain Future, 2013

Research paper thumbnail of The Marketization of Religion: Field, Capital, and Consumer Identity

Journal of Consumer Research, Oct 2014

Research paper thumbnail of Advancement in higher education: the role of marketing in building philanthropic giving

Journal of Marketing for Higher Education, 2014

This paper empirically explores ways in which marketers of higher education can contribute to the... more This paper empirically explores ways in which marketers of higher education can contribute to the important task of cultivating alumni philanthropy. Advancement professionals understand that philanthropy is influenced by wealth and affinity. As marketers, we anticipate that our contribution resides with investments in building affinity. Using survey data that measures the affinity of alumni of a large US university who have been commercially screened to reveal individual wealth, this paper provides empirical evidence of the relative contributions of affinity and wealth to giving. Logistic regression analysis reveals that affinity has a greater impact on predicting the likelihood of giving than other variables, including prior giving and wealth. Important to marketers, this study emphasizes the importance of building affinity and also uncovers obstacles to affinity formation. This information can be used to bridge and repair alumni relationships with their alma-mater and inform segmented marketing communications to foster alumni enthusiasm for giving.

Research paper thumbnail of Simplifying Complexity to Reveal the Profound

Journal of customer behaviour, May 20, 2024

Research paper thumbnail of Catch of the day: How a social enterprise based on fishing helped Newfoundlanders reanimate their cultural identity

˜The œsociological review. Magazine, Feb 6, 2024

Research paper thumbnail of Self Quantification and the Datapreneurial Consumer Identity

Consumption Markets & Culture, 2018

This study delivers a clearer understanding of the constitution of the datapreneurial consumer, t... more This study delivers a clearer understanding of the constitution of the datapreneurial consumer, the role of the market in that construction, and the implications for consumer identity projects in the age of Big Data and an increasingly data- and surveillance-driven society. The study uses a theoretical framework of the “quantified self” (QS) to examine consumers (re)building creditworthiness. In the context of a major online credit-user forum, it employs creative-nonfiction methodology to protect forum-member privacy. To the literature on creditworthiness, the study contributes a process model of the construction of the datapreneurial credit consumer identity. To the QS literature, it offers insight into how consumers may embrace quantification and self-tracking, even in areas where they are nudged or pushed into it. To the sociology of quantification literature, it adds empirics to explain how consumers may embrace market-provided self-quantification resources in attempts to liberate themselves from the structural control of that very quantification.

Research paper thumbnail of Changing the Script: Family Collectivity Formation in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

ACR North American Advances, 2014

Research paper thumbnail of The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit As an Assembled Servicescape: How Do Technological Actors Affect Parent/Staff Decision-Making?

ACR North American Advances, 2016

Research paper thumbnail of Ontological Flattening, Vibrant Matter and Consumption: Sending Canonical Theories Back to School

ACR North American Advances, 2015

Research paper thumbnail of Leaving an identity-central community of practice

Research paper thumbnail of Turning the Titanic: Creating Consumer-Centric Cultures and Improved Consumer Experience in Large, Established Health Care Systems

ACR North American Advances, 2018

Research paper thumbnail of Maven 2.0: the Newly Assembled Interactive Ex-Pat Market Maven

ACR North American Advances, 2015

Research paper thumbnail of Social Enterprise as a Broker of Identity Resources

Sustainability, 2022

Social enterprises often transmit pro-social values to their staff, volunteers, stakeholders, and... more Social enterprises often transmit pro-social values to their staff, volunteers, stakeholders, and communities. Research also shows that social enterprises can improve aspects of beneficiaries’ identity and self-worth. However, knowledge about identity-construction dynamics among social enterprises, their founders and other stakeholders, and the communities and cultures in which they are situated is undertheorized and fragmented across fields. This is attributable, at least in part, to the lack of a theory that can explain identity construction across micro-individual, meso-organizational, and macro-cultural levels. This study makes two major contributions. First, we advance a novel, multi-level theoretical framework for understanding identity construction based on assemblage theory. Second, we use that framework to interpret data from our ethnographic study of a social enterprise based in a Canadian fishing village. Our study reveals that the social enterprise actively curates ident...

Research paper thumbnail of Home for Christmas

Journal of Customer Behaviour

Research paper thumbnail of Self-quantification and the datapreneurial consumer identity

Consumption Markets & Culture

Research paper thumbnail of The Marketization of Religion: Field, Capital, and Consumer Identity

Journal of Consumer Research, 2014

Certain institutions traditionally have had broad socializing influence over their members, provi... more Certain institutions traditionally have had broad socializing influence over their members, providing templates for identity that comprehend all aspects of life from the existential and moral to the mundanely material. Marketization and detraditionalization undermine that socializing role. This study examines the consequences when, for some members, such an institution loses its authority to structure identity. With a hermeneutical method and a perspective grounded in Bourdieu’s theories of fields and capital, this research investigates the experiences of disaffected members of a religious institution and consumption field. Consumers face severe crises of identity and the need to rebuild their self-understandings in an unfamiliar marketplace of identity resources. Unable to remain comfortably in the field of their primary socialization, they are nevertheless bound to it by investments in field-specific capital. In negotiating this dilemma, they demonstrate the inseparability and co-constitutive nature of ideology and consumption.

Research paper thumbnail of Millennials and Boomers: increasing alumni affinity and intent to give by target market segmentation

International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, 2015

Research paper thumbnail of Residential Diversity and Division

The Uncertain Future, 2013

Research paper thumbnail of The Marketization of Religion: Field, Capital, and Consumer Identity

Journal of Consumer Research, Oct 2014

Research paper thumbnail of Advancement in higher education: the role of marketing in building philanthropic giving

Journal of Marketing for Higher Education, 2014

This paper empirically explores ways in which marketers of higher education can contribute to the... more This paper empirically explores ways in which marketers of higher education can contribute to the important task of cultivating alumni philanthropy. Advancement professionals understand that philanthropy is influenced by wealth and affinity. As marketers, we anticipate that our contribution resides with investments in building affinity. Using survey data that measures the affinity of alumni of a large US university who have been commercially screened to reveal individual wealth, this paper provides empirical evidence of the relative contributions of affinity and wealth to giving. Logistic regression analysis reveals that affinity has a greater impact on predicting the likelihood of giving than other variables, including prior giving and wealth. Important to marketers, this study emphasizes the importance of building affinity and also uncovers obstacles to affinity formation. This information can be used to bridge and repair alumni relationships with their alma-mater and inform segmented marketing communications to foster alumni enthusiasm for giving.