Viewpoint: understanding consumer vulnerability across service ecosystem configurations

Purpose This viewpoint aims to advance understanding of consumer vulnerability by examining how different configurations of structural, institutional and relational conditions shape vulnerability across service ecosystems. Country context, regulation and customer-to-customer (C2C) interaction provide complementary perspectives for examining these conditions. Design/methodology/approach This paper adopts a conceptual, integrative approach, synthesising literature from transformative service research, service ecosystem theory and marketing to develop an analytical framework that integrates country context, regulation and C2C interaction. Findings Consumer vulnerability varies according to the configuration and interdependence of structural conditions, institutional arrangements and relational processes. Together, these conditions may create, reinforce, negotiate or alleviate vulnerability across different service ecosystems. Research limitations/implications The framework encourages comparative, multi-level and longitudinal research examining how structural, institutional and relational conditions combine and change across service ecosystem configurations. Practical implications The framework encourages service providers and policymakers to adopt ecosystem-oriented strategies that consider structural, institutional and relational conditions together when addressing sources of vulnerability. Originality/value Building on existing understandings of vulnerability as dynamic and ecosystem-based, this viewpoint provides an analytical framework for explaining how variation and interdependence among structural, institutional and relational conditions shape vulnerability across service ecosystems, supporting more comparative and context-sensitive theorising within TSR.