Special Issue Editors: Michael G. Luchs, Varun Nagaraj, Jason Stornelli, Shabbir Husain R.V.
Submission window: January 1, 2027–April 5, 2027
Contact email: wiserconsumptionandinnovation@gmail.com
Resource folder with introductory readings: https://tinyurl.com/wiserconsumptionandinnovation
Background and Motivation
Rapid technological, market, and societal changes are reshaping consumption in ways that profoundly influence well-being. For example, AI-enabled tools increasingly guide financial, health, and purchasing decisions; digital platforms structure how consumers connect, learn, and spend their time; and innovations in products and services—from personalized recommendations to on-demand consumption—reconfigure everyday choices and usage behaviors. These examples are illustrative of a much broader set of transformations that are reshaping how consumption is experienced and enacted across contexts. Building on prior work, such as the Transformative Consumer Research (TCR) movement, this special issue introduces wisdom as a distinct lens for understanding these phenomena. Rather than viewing consumption primarily in terms of trade-offs or isolated outcomes, a wisdom perspective emphasizes how individuals, firms, and institutions can engage in more reflective, ethically grounded, and context-sensitive processes that support individual and collective flourishing.
This special issue advances this perspective by drawing on research that conceptualizes wisdom as a process integrating metacognitive capacities (e.g., reflection, perspective-taking, intellectual humility) with moral reasoning oriented toward the well-being of oneself and others (Grossmann et al. 2020). In consumer contexts, this builds on emerging work defining consumer wisdom as the pursuit of well-being through mindful management of consumption-related choices and behaviors (Luchs and Mick 2018; Luchs, Mick, and Haws 2021).
At the same time, wiser consumption is not solely a function of individual decision-making; it is shaped by the interaction of consumers with the products, services, platforms, and institutions that structure choice and usage environments. Prior research identifies how marketing practices and public policy might enable or constrain wiser consumption across the value cycle (Ozanne et al. 2021), highlighting the need for a more integrated understanding of how individual capabilities, innovation, marketplace design, and governance structures jointly influence outcomes.
Scope and Positioning
We invite research that advances understanding of how wisdom—conceptualized as a process combining metacognition and moral reasoning (Grossmann et al. 2020)—can be operationalized and embedded in marketplace systems to support flourishing. Consistent with this orientation, the special issue welcomes research on consumer wisdom and wiser forms of innovation, including how consumers’ capacities for reflective, morally grounded consumption may be supported by products, services, platforms, business models, and marketplace systems that make wise reasoning and wise action more salient, feasible, and effective.
Submissions may focus on:
- Consumer-level processes (e.g., how individuals think, decide, and act wisely), or
- Firm- and system-level processes, including how products, services, platforms, and business models are designed in ways that may enable or constrain wise action,
but must, in all cases, substantively engage public policy.
Public policy is central to this special issue. Contributions should treat policy as an integral component of the research—shaping, enabling, or constraining marketplace behavior—rather than as an add-on implication.
While prior work has established foundational definitions and measures of consumer wisdom (Luchs and Mick 2018; Luchs et al. 2021), we welcome extensions, reinterpretations, and new conceptualizations, as well as research that explores and defines how firms and marketplace systems may support or inhibit wiser consumption through innovation. Submissions should engage wisdom as a contextual, process-oriented construct, rather than as general expertise or isolated traits.
Fit Criteria for Submissions
Submissions should:
- Engage wisdom as a core construct, conceptualized as a process involving both metacognitive elements and moral reasoning, consistent with contemporary models (Grossmann et al. 2020).
- Examine how wiser processes unfold at the consumer level, organizational level, or both, including work on behavior, design, systems, or governance.
- Integrate public policy in a meaningful and central way, such that policy considerations are embedded in the research question, theory, or empirical contribution.
- Address marketing-relevant phenomena, including how marketplace actors and systems shape behavior and outcomes.
We particularly encourage work that connects individual behavior, market design, and policy context, though contributions may focus more deeply on one level provided that policy relevance is clear and substantive.
Illustrative Research Topics
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- How do metacognitive and moral processes shape consumer decision-making across domains such as sustainability, digital consumption, health, and finance?
- How can products, services, platforms, and business models be designed to support wiser consumption processes?
- How do marketing practices—such as communication, pricing, and distribution—shape the extent to which consumers can act wisely?
- How do regulatory frameworks, standards, incentives, and disclosures enable or constrain wiser consumption and marketplace design?
- How can marketplace systems better support the translation of intentions into action?
- How can wisdom and related constructs be operationalized and measured across contexts and over time?
- What are the individual, societal, and environmental outcomes of wiser consumption?
Expected Contributions and Impact
This special issue aims to advance research at the intersection of marketing and public policy by:
- Positioning wisdom as a distinct and integrative lens for understanding consumer behavior and marketplace systems
- Extending theory on how firms and policies shape the conditions under which wiser consumption can emerge
- Providing actionable insights for designing markets, innovations, and policies that promote flourishing
By integrating perspectives across consumers, firms, and policy, the special issue seeks to develop a coherent framework for enabling wiser consumption in contemporary marketplaces.
Submission Information
Submissions should be made through the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing‘s ScholarOne site during the special issue window (January 1, 2027–April 5, 2027). All manuscripts will undergo the journal’s standard double-anonymized peer review process.
References
Davis, Brennan, Julie L. Ozanne, and Ronald P. Hill (2016), “The Transformative Consumer Research Movement,” Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 35 (2), 159–69.
Grossmann, Igor, Nic M. Weststrate, Monika Ardelt, et al. (2020), “The Science of Wisdom in a Polarized World: Knowns and Unknowns,” Psychological Inquiry, 31 (2), 103–33.
Luchs, Michael Gerhard and David Glen Mick (2018), “Consumer Wisdom: A Theoretical Framework of Five Integrated Facets,” Journal of Consumer Psychology, 28 (3), 365–92.
Luchs, Michael Gerhard, David Glen Mick, and Kelly L. Haws (2021), “Consumer Wisdom for Personal Well-Being and the Greater Good: Scale Development and Validation,” Journal of Consumer Psychology, 31 (3), 587–611.
Ozanne, Lucie K., Jason Stornelli, Michael G. Luchs, et al. (2021), “Enabling and Cultivating Wiser Consumption: The Roles of Marketing and Public Policy,” Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 40 (2), 226–44.