Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • apa.csl
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Curating the Crowd: How Firms Manage Social Fit to Stage Social Atmospheres
King’s College London, UK.
University of Bath, UK.
Karlstad University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (starting 2013), Karlstad Business School (from 2013). Karlstad University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (starting 2013), Service Research Center (from 2013). University of Adelaide, Australia .ORCID iD: 0000-0003-0700-0495
Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.
2026 (English)In: Journal of marketing, ISSN 0022-2429, E-ISSN 1547-7185, Vol. 90, no 2, p. 115-134Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

In sectors across the experience economy—from live sports to festivals, nightlife entertainment, private members’ clubs, and invite-only events—firms compete by staging social atmospheres. When firms successfully stage social atmospheres, they benefit from enhanced customer experiences, loyalty, and place attachment. However, social atmospheres often fail when firms struggle to bring together the “optimal” mix of customers. Yet marketing research offers limited insight into how firms can attract and select heterogeneous customers who fit together productively to create meaningful shared experiences of place. Accordingly, this article draws on aesthetic work literature to conceptualize social atmosphere curation—the process through which firms manage customer heterogeneity to achieve social fit as a means to stage social atmospheres. Through an ethnographic study of Berlin's iconic electronic music club scene, this article reveals a three-stage social atmosphere curation model, comprising curation mechanisms of cultivation, selection, and mystification. This research advances marketing scholarship's understanding of social atmospheres, customer heterogeneity, and marketplace inclusion and exclusion. By outlining the managerial tasks associated with each curation mechanism, this research provides actionable guidance for managers across various service contexts on how to curate the right crowd to deliberately stage social atmospheres.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Sage Publications, 2026. Vol. 90, no 2, p. 115-134
Keywords [en]
social atmosphere, customer heterogeneity, aesthetic work, marketplace inclusion, marketplace exclusion, social fit, customer selection, nightclubs
National Category
Business Administration
Research subject
Business Administration
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-104179DOI: 10.1177/00222429251328277ISI: 001512150400001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105009828921OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kau-104179DiVA, id: diva2:1955937
Available from: 2025-05-02 Created: 2025-05-02 Last updated: 2026-03-25Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

fulltext(929 kB)12 downloads
File information
File name FULLTEXT03.pdfFile size 929 kBChecksum SHA-512
8302005f23c676f9276483753027e7aba053ccdd588c6b52b63d79594aa9f135083da454d46d8cd55bae3d9668e6c88e47054b8a20239019623c93cf318f66a1
Type fulltextMimetype application/pdf

Other links

Publisher's full textScopus

Authority records

Karpen, Ingo Oswald

Search in DiVA

By author/editor
Karpen, Ingo Oswald
By organisation
Karlstad Business School (from 2013)Service Research Center (from 2013)
In the same journal
Journal of marketing
Business Administration

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar
Total: 182 downloads
The number of downloads is the sum of all downloads of full texts. It may include eg previous versions that are now no longer available

doi
urn-nbn

Altmetric score

doi
urn-nbn
Total: 168 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • apa.csl
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf