A study note on poststructuralism and customer delight: for MBA students

A study note on poststructuralism and customer delight: for MBA students (information from perplexity.ai)

My question 1: "What is customer delight in marketing with reference to poststructuralism?"

The reply: "Customer delight in marketing refers to the phenomenon where a company exceeds customer expectations to create a positive emotional reaction, leading to stronger brand loyalty and advocacy. It goes beyond mere customer satisfaction by surprising and exciting customers, resulting in deeper emotional engagement and a higher likelihood of repeat business and positive word-of-mouth.

From a poststructuralist perspective, customer delight can be interpreted as a complex, multifaceted construct that resists fixed or singular definitions. Poststructuralism emphasizes the fluidity of meaning, the role of language, power relations, and the deconstruction of established categories. Applying this to customer delight suggests that delight is not just a measurable emotional state or outcome but a dynamic experience shaped by multiple interacting factors such as cultural context, individual interpretation, and the narrative constructed around the brand-customer interaction.

For example, recent research expands the theory of customer delight beyond simple joy or surprise to include six properties: positive emotions, social interaction, successful problem-solving, sensory engagement, timing, and a sense of control during the customer encounter. This aligns with poststructuralist ideas by highlighting that delight is not a fixed state but a combination of diverse experiences and meanings that vary across contexts and individuals.

In marketing practice, this means that delight cannot be fully captured by traditional satisfaction metrics alone; instead, it requires understanding the multiple, often contradictory ways customers experience and interpret their interactions with a brand. Poststructuralism would encourage marketers to see customer delight as a narrative and relational process, constructed through language, symbols, and social interactions, rather than a simple cause-effect outcome.

In summary:

Aspect	Traditional Marketing View	Poststructuralist View
Definition	Exceeding expectations to create positive emotions and loyalty	A fluid, multifaceted experience shaped by language, culture, and power relations
Measurement	Metrics like Net Promoter Score, satisfaction surveys	Complex, context-dependent narratives and meanings
Focus	Emotional engagement, surprise, joy	Multiple properties including social, sensory, temporal, and control aspects
Implication for Marketers	Create exceptional experiences to delight customers	Understand and engage with the diverse, constructed meanings of delight in customers' lived experiences

 

Thus, customer delight in marketing, viewed through poststructuralism, is not merely an emotional state but a socially constructed and contextually variable phenomenon that challenges fixed definitions and invites marketers to embrace complexity and multiplicity in customer experience design."

My question 2: "How would poststructuralism inform research method design with regard to the MBA dissertation topic of "to evaluate the consumer delight of Hong Kong Gen Zs on their dinner experience at Peninsula Hong Kong 2025"?"

The reply: "For the MBA dissertation topic "to evaluate the consumer delight of Hong Kong Gen Zs on their dinner experience at Peninsula Hong Kong 2025," a poststructuralist approach to research method design would emphasize the fluid, multiple, and socially constructed nature of consumer delight rather than treating it as a fixed or objectively measurable phenomenon.

Key ways poststructuralism would inform your research design include:

• Focus on multiple, fragmented meanings: Poststructuralism rejects singular, stable meanings. Your research would explore how different Gen Z consumers construct diverse and sometimes contradictory meanings of delight in their dinner experience, shaped by their unique social, cultural, and historical contexts.

• Use of open-ended, flexible qualitative methods: Methods such as unstructured or semi-structured interviews would be suitable, allowing participants to express their experiences and interpretations in their own terms. This aligns with the poststructuralist critique of traditional phenomenological interviews that focus narrowly on individual experience without accounting for cultural complexity.

• Attention to language, discourse, and power relations: You would analyze how language used by Gen Z diners (in interviews, social media, reviews) constructs the idea of delight and how this is influenced by broader discourses of luxury, identity, and generational values. This includes examining how power relations (e.g., between consumer and brand, tradition and modernity) shape these meanings.

• Rejecting fixed categories: Instead of categorizing delight into fixed dimensions, you would explore how the concept is continuously reconstructed through social interactions and cultural narratives, highlighting its instability and contextuality.

• Interpreting consumer subjectivity as constructed: Poststructuralism views consumers not as autonomous, stable subjects but as identities continuously shaped by external social and cultural forces. Your research would thus attend to how Gen Z’s subjectivities around dining and delight are formed and reformed through their interactions with Peninsula Hong Kong’s brand and environment.

• Methodological implications: The researcher’s role is interpretive and reflexive, recognizing their own influence on the research process and the co-construction of meaning with participants. Data analysis would involve discourse analysis, narrative analysis, or other interpretive techniques that uncover how delight is socially and linguistically produced.

Summary Table: Poststructuralism in Research Design for Your Dissertation

Poststructuralist Principle	Application to Dissertation Research Design
Multiple, fragmented meanings	Explore diverse, contradictory consumer constructions of delight
Open-ended qualitative methods	Use unstructured/semi-structured interviews allowing rich, participant-led data
Language and discourse analysis	Analyze how language constructs delight and reflects power relations
Reject fixed categories	Avoid fixed delight dimensions; focus on fluid, contextual meanings
Consumer subjectivity as constructed	Examine how Gen Z identities around delight are shaped by social/cultural forces
Reflexive researcher role	Interpret data reflexively, acknowledging co-construction of meaning

 Practical research design suggestions:

• Conduct in-depth, open-ended interviews with Hong Kong Gen Z consumers who dined at Peninsula Hong Kong, encouraging them to narrate their experiences freely.

• Collect and analyze social media content, online reviews, and marketing materials to study the discourses around dining delight.

• Apply discourse or narrative analysis to identify how meanings of delight are constructed, contested, and linked to broader cultural themes (e.g., luxury, modernity, identity).

• Reflect on your own positionality as a researcher and how it shapes data collection and interpretation.

This poststructuralist-informed approach provides a nuanced, culturally sensitive understanding of consumer delight as a socially produced and continuously evolving phenomenon rather than a fixed outcome to be measured quantitatively."

My question 3: "Highlight 8 main ideas of poststructuralism with regard to our topic of discussion here."

The reply: "Here are 8 main ideas of poststructuralism relevant to the topic of evaluating consumer delight of Hong Kong Gen Zs on their dinner experience at Peninsula Hong Kong 2025:

1. Rejection of fixed meanings
   Poststructuralism argues that meanings (such as "consumer delight") are not stable or universal but are fluid, multiple, and context-dependent. Delight is thus seen as a shifting experience shaped by individual and cultural interpretations rather than a fixed emotional state.

2. Focus on language and discourse
   Consumer experiences are constructed through language and discourse. How Gen Zs talk about their dining experience—through interviews, social media, or reviews—actively shapes what delight means and how it is understood.

3. Power relations embedded in discourse
   Discourses around luxury dining and consumer delight carry power dynamics that influence how consumers position themselves and are positioned by brands like Peninsula Hong Kong. These power relations affect identity formation and the experience of delight.

4. Consumer subjectivity as socially constructed
   Poststructuralism views consumers not as fixed, autonomous individuals but as subjects whose identities and experiences (including delight) are constructed through social, cultural, and discursive processes.

5. Multiplicity and contradiction
   Delight is not a singular or coherent experience but can contain contradictory elements and multiple interpretations simultaneously, reflecting the complex realities of Gen Z consumers' cultural and social contexts.

6. Critique of essentialism and grand narratives
   It challenges any essentialist or universal claims about consumer behavior or delight, emphasizing instead the particularities and contingencies of each consumer’s experience.

7. Reflexivity and researcher positionality
   Researchers must be aware of their own role in constructing knowledge about consumer delight, recognizing that their interpretations are also part of the discourse and not neutral or objective.

8. Ethical responsibility and freedom
   Poststructuralism highlights the ethical dimension of accepting the freedom and responsibility involved in interpreting and representing consumer experiences, acknowledging the impact of these representations on social realities.

These ideas together suggest that research on consumer delight among Hong Kong Gen Zs should embrace complexity, avoid fixed categories, analyze language and power in consumer narratives, and reflect critically on the researcher’s role in constructing meaning.

References:

 Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication, Post-Structuralism (2016)

 Encyclopedia of Consumer Culture - Post-Structuralism

 Holt, D.B. (1997). Poststructuralist Lifestyle Analysis, Journal of Consumer Research

 Writing the Difference: Poststructuralism, Reflexivity, and Ethnographic Consumer Research (2012)"

My question 4: "Also highlight 8 main analysis techniques of poststructuralism with regard to our of topic discussion here."

The reply: "Here are 8 main poststructuralist analysis techniques relevant to researching the consumer delight of Hong Kong Gen Zs at Peninsula Hong Kong in 2025, based on the poststructuralist perspective and the literature on consumer research:

1. Discourse Analysis
   Examines how language and communication construct the meanings of consumer delight, focusing on the narratives, metaphors, and rhetorical devices Gen Z consumers use to describe their dining experiences. It reveals how power, identity, and social norms shape these discourses.

2. Narrative Analysis
   Focuses on the stories consumers tell about their experiences, exploring how delight is constructed through storytelling and how different narratives reflect diverse and sometimes conflicting interpretations of the dining event.

3. Semiotic Analysis
   Studies signs, symbols, and cultural codes embedded in the dining experience (e.g., décor, menu design, service rituals) to uncover how meaning and delight are produced through symbolic systems.

4. Reflexive Ethnography
   Involves the researcher’s critical reflection on their own role in producing knowledge, recognizing that the research process itself shapes the understanding of delight. This method often includes participant observation and iterative interpretation.

5. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)
   Goes beyond describing discourse to analyze how power relations and ideologies are reproduced or challenged in consumer talk and marketing communications about luxury dining and delight.

6. Deconstruction
   A method that breaks down and questions taken-for-granted assumptions and binary oppositions (e.g., luxury vs. accessibility, satisfaction vs. delight) in consumer experiences, revealing internal contradictions and complexities.

7. Thematic Coding with a Poststructuralist Lens
   Systematic coding of qualitative data (interviews, social media posts) to identify themes while remaining open to contradictions, ambiguities, and multiple interpretations rather than forcing data into fixed categories.

8. Intertextual Analysis
   Examines how different texts (e.g., consumer reviews, advertising, social media) interact and influence each other in constructing the meaning of delight, highlighting the fluidity and multiplicity of consumer experience representations.

Summary Table

Technique	Description and Application to Topic
Discourse Analysis	Analyze language shaping delight narratives and power relations
Narrative Analysis	Explore consumer stories constructing diverse delight meanings
Semiotic Analysis	Decode cultural symbols and signs in the dining experience
Reflexive Ethnography	Researcher reflects on their role in co-constructing delight meaning
Critical Discourse Analysis	Investigate power and ideology in consumer and marketing discourses
Deconstruction	Unpack and challenge binary oppositions and assumptions about delight

These techniques allow a rich, nuanced, and critical exploration of how Hong Kong Gen Z consumers construct and experience delight at Peninsula Hong Kong, emphasizing the instability, plurality, and cultural embeddedness of consumer delight."

My question 5: "Contrast 3 main ideas and 2 main analysis techniques of poststructuralism with that of structuralism with regard to our topic of discussion."

The reply: "Here is a contrast between 3 main ideas and 2 main analysis techniques of poststructuralism and structuralism with regard to the MBA dissertation topic of evaluating consumer delight of Hong Kong Gen Zs on their dinner experience at Peninsula Hong Kong 2025: 

Aspect	Structuralism	Poststructuralism
1. Meaning Stability	Assumes meaning is stable and can be uncovered by analyzing underlying structures and relationships in the dining experience (e.g., service, ambiance, food quality as fixed elements producing delight). It seeks universal patterns or "deep structures" that explain consumer delight.	Views meaning as fluid, fragmented, and constantly shifting. Delight is not fixed but multiple and context-dependent, constructed through language and social interaction, resisting universal or stable definitions.
2. Role of Subject	Considers consumers as relatively stable subjects whose experiences reflect underlying structures. Consumer delight is seen as an outcome of structural relations within the dining system.	Sees consumers as socially and discursively constructed subjects, whose identities and experiences (including delight) are continuously shaped and reshaped by cultural and linguistic forces.
3. Approach to Language and Texts	Treats language and texts (e.g., consumer narratives) as structured systems with fixed rules that reveal underlying meanings when decoded. Binary oppositions (e.g., satisfaction/delight) are key analytical tools.	Treats language and texts as unstable, contradictory, and open to multiple interpretations. It challenges binaries and explores how meanings are produced through power relations and discourse, emphasizing ambiguity and multiplicity.

 

Analysis Technique	Structuralism	Poststructuralism
1. Thematic/ Structural Coding	Systematic coding to identify recurring themes and universal patterns in consumer delight (e.g., common factors across Gen Z diners that produce delight). Focus on coherence and stable categories.	Coding that embraces contradictions, ambiguities, and multiple meanings, highlighting how delight is constructed differently across contexts and individuals without forcing fixed categories.
2. Binary Oppositions Analysis	Identifies and analyzes binary oppositions (e.g., luxury vs. accessibility, satisfaction vs. delight) as fundamental to understanding the structure of consumer experience.	Deconstructs and problematizes binaries, revealing their instability and how they reflect power dynamics, thus exposing complexities and tensions in how delight is experienced and represented.

 Summary

• Structuralism seeks to uncover stable, universal structures underlying consumer delight, treating meanings and subjects as relatively fixed and analyzable through systematic coding and binary oppositions.

• Poststructuralism challenges these assumptions, emphasizing the fluidity of meaning, the constructed nature of consumer identities, and the instability of language, using interpretive, reflexive methods that embrace ambiguity and critique power relations.

For your dissertation, structuralism would guide you to identify consistent patterns in Gen Zs’ delight experiences at Peninsula Hong Kong, while poststructuralism would encourage exploring diverse, contested meanings and the socio-cultural discourses shaping those experiences."

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