Telfer Research Seminar Series - Eileen Fischer
How do Markets Become Polarized? Insights from the Canadian Market for Nicotine Vapes
Deadline: March 14, 2025,
***M.Sc. Students, these seminars can count towards the six mandatory Research Seminars Series required for your program (MGT 6191/ MGT 6991 / MHS 6991) (4 seminars for MSc Project-based students).***
Eileen Fischer, PhD
Despite the considerable literature on market systems dynamics (Giesler and Fischer 2017; Fischer and Giesler 2024), the processes by which a market becomes “polarized” have yet to be fully investigated. Our paper addresses this gap, defining market polarization as “a growing tendency toward starkly opposing views among stakeholders about aspects of the market.” Drawing on longitudinal qualitative data from the Canadian nicotine vaping market, the paper identifies mounting bases of contestation that collectively fuel polarization between and among stakeholders including consumers, public health officials, policy makers, and vaping retailers. The paper concludes with a consideration of the transferability of insights and its contributions to the literatures on market systems, systemic mistrust, and consumer polarization.
About the Speaker
Eileen Fischer is a Professor of Marketing, and the Tanenbaum Chair of Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise, in the Schulich School of Business at York University. She holds honorary appointments at the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Business and Economics and the Bayes School of Business at City University, London. She has also received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of St. Gallen.
Eileen has wide-ranging research interests that span the field of marketing, entrepreneurship and international business; she has published in a spectrum of top tier journals including Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, Academy of Management Review, Journal of Business Venturing, and Journal of International Business Studies. She is particularly known for her expertise in qualitative research methods, having co-authored one textbook and numerous papers on how to gather and analyze qualitative data. She has taught a doctoral course in qualitative methods for more than 30 years, and has participated in many qualitative methods training seminars in Europe, Australia and the U.S.
