Twenty-five years of consumer vulnerability research: Critical insights and future directions

Consumer vulnerability is gaining increasing attention from researchers and practitioners as a social phenomenon in modern consumption-driven societies. In an attempt to conduct a comprehensive review using credible published research materials on the topic, this study applies a big data analytics approach to analyze scholarly research with a pool of 859 articles covering the last 25 years of post-modern marketing practices that have been a precursor to market-driven vulnerability. This paper identifies the most influential articles, as well as the top contributing journals and authors, along with their affiliations. In addition, this study reveals four major themes of research in consumer vulnerability, namely marketing, fraud and consumers, consumer vulnerability and well-being, ethics and vulnerable consumers, and consumption, disability and gender. These integrative perspectives will serve as a critical starting point to encourage focused theme-based exploration in the field.