Michael Luchs | College of William and Mary (original) (raw)

Papers by Michael Luchs

In response to dominant patterns of mainstream consumption evident in developed economies, Consum... more In response to dominant patterns of mainstream consumption evident in developed economies, Consumer Wisdom offers a positive alternative whose objective is to simultaneously promote the well-being of the individual, society, and the natural environment. The current research has two objectives. First, through a series of in-depth interviews with individuals nominated for their wisdom, we provide an empirically grounded theory of Consumer Wisdom. Our theory of Consumer Wisdom is composed of five interdependent facets: Contemplation, Intentionality, Emotional Mastery, Openness, and Transcendence. Next, we synthesize design principles from existing design frameworks and philosophies that align with the facets of consumer wisdom, and we build on these to reflect new insights derived from our theory. eĚǋǅūƑēƙ Wise Consumer Design for Wisdom

Psychology & Marketing, 2021

Prior research has demonstrated the critical role of values in promoting sustainable consumption ... more Prior research has demonstrated the critical role of values in promoting sustainable consumption behaviors. However, research is needed to identify novel ways to influence these values so that consumers will act on them. The present research demonstrates a practical and underappreciated way to enhance the values that promote sustainable consumption behaviors. Specifically, we demonstrate that mindfulness has a positive relationship with biospheric and altruistic values (but not egoistic values), and that these values mediate the relationship between mindfulness and two distinct forms of sustainable consumption: socially conscious consumption and frugal (i.e., reduced) consumption. We employ a series of three studies with sample populations drawn from different countries, and we use multiple measures for each of our focal constructs to demonstrate the robustness of our findings. Our findings suggest that marketers and policy makers can integrate mindfulness into their promotion and e...

Journal of Consumer Psychology, Mar 14, 2018

We establish a parsimonious theoretical framework of consumer wisdom based on five mutually reinf... more We establish a parsimonious theoretical framework of consumer wisdom based on five mutually reinforcing psychological facets. Our research draws from wisdom literature and a set of 31 phenomenological interviews with informants who were identified through a multi-stage nomination process. The five facets of consumer wisdom that emerged are Intentionality, Contemplation, Emotional Mastery, Openness, and Transcendence. Together, they comprise a data-grounded, aspirational model of consumer wisdom-for researchers as well as consumers-to understand, maintain, and improve personal and collective well-being. We discuss the implications of the framework and directions for future research.

Journal of Consumer Affairs

Journal of Public Policy & Marketing

Contemporary consumers, societies, and ecologies face many challenges to well-being. Consumer res... more Contemporary consumers, societies, and ecologies face many challenges to well-being. Consumer researchers have responded with new attention to what engenders happiness and flourishing, particularly as a function of wiser consumption. Consumer wisdom has been conceptualized as the pursuit of well-being through the application of six interrelated dimensions: responsibility, purpose, flexibility, perspective, reasoning, and sustainability. However, up to now, the roles of marketing management and government policies with respect to enabling and supporting consumer wisdom have not been thoroughly and systematically considered. To do this, the authors adopt an integrative approach based on a range of theoretical and empirical insights from both consumer research and wisdom research in the social sciences. They weave these insights into the stages of an expanded version of the circular economy model of the value cycle, within which they also include the traditional four Ps of the marketin...

Develop a more systematic, human-centered, results-oriented thought process Design Thinking is th... more Develop a more systematic, human-centered, results-oriented thought process Design Thinking is the Product Development and Management Association's (PDMA) guide to better problem solving and decisionmaking in product development and beyond. The second in the New Product Development Essentials series, this book shows you how to bridge the gap between the strategic importance of design and the tactical approach of design thinking. You'll learn how to approach new product development from a fresh perspective, with a focus on systematic, targeted thinking that results in a repeatable, humancentered problem-solving process. Integrating high-level discussion with practical, actionable strategy, this book helps you re-tool your thought processes in a way that translates well beyond product development, giving you a new way to approach business strategy and more.

Journal of Consumer Policy, 2017

Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 2016

Corporate sustainability management encompasses multiple dimensions: environmental, social, and e... more Corporate sustainability management encompasses multiple dimensions: environmental, social, and economic. Companies are increasingly evaluated within the public sphere, and within their own organizations, according to the degree to which they are perceived to simultaneously promote this nexus of virtues. This article seeks to explore the tensions frequently faced by organizations that strive to manage these dimensions and the role of public policy in that pursuit. A multiple–case study approach is utilized in which the authors selected case organizations according to whether they were attempting to manage the three dimensions of sustainability. The authors utilize paradox theory and a typology provided by previous research to understand the nature of the tensions that emerge in the selected case study organizations. They extend this previous work by examining the role of public policy in providing the situational conditions to make these paradoxical tensions salient, and they examin...

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2010

Journal of Consumer Policy, 2011

Sustainable consumer behaviour-behaviour motivated or influenced by social and/or environmental c... more Sustainable consumer behaviour-behaviour motivated or influenced by social and/or environmental considerations-is an important topic in public policy and consumer psychology. Research on the antecedents of sustainable consumer behaviour has found a robust "gender effect": women are more likely than men to express concern about consumption's broader impacts and to act upon those concerns. The mechanisms underlying the gender effect have not been well elucidated. At the same time, more limited research has found that sustainable consumer behaviour is also influenced by personality: more agreeable and more open consumers are more likely to place importance on and to act on social and environmental concerns. Separate research in personality psychology has shown that women tend to be more agreeable than men. The authors integrate these findings to propose and test a model in which personality mediates the effect of sex on sustainable consumer behaviour. The personality differences mediating this effect are the same ones elsewhere subsumed within "gender" differences. Our findings clarify the mechanisms underlying the observed sex effect, confirm the utility of personality constructs in clarifying differences in consumer attitudes and behaviours, and have compelling implications for public policy.

Journal of Business Research, 2013

Abstract This article explores the potential of a theoretical framework, based on social cognitiv... more Abstract This article explores the potential of a theoretical framework, based on social cognitive theory (SCT), to inspire future research into sustainable consumption. The SCT framework provides a dynamic perspective on sustainable consumption through exploring the interactive nature of personal, environmental and behavioral factors of consumption. The SCT framework, which builds on prior theoretical models of sustainable consumption, incorporates the concept of reciprocal determinism, wherein personal, environmental and ...

Order of authorship is alphabetical amongst the first three co-authors, who served as co-chairs o... more Order of authorship is alphabetical amongst the first three co-authors, who served as co-chairs of the Sustainable Consumption Track of the 3rd Transformative Consumer Research conference held at Baylor University's Hankamer School of Business in the summer of 2011. Order of authorship is alphabetical amongst the remaining contributing authors who were participants of the track.

Journal of Consumer Psychology, 2018

This research seeks to demonstrate consumers' intuition that there is an inherent tradeoff b... more This research seeks to demonstrate consumers' intuition that there is an inherent tradeoff between a given product's "ethical attributes" and the product's effectiveness, or functional performance. Ethical attributes are those attributes that reflect a person's conscience and which may relate to a variety of environmental, individual and societal issues. We demonstrate in our first two studies, using toothpaste (Study 1) and laundry detergent (Study 2) as a product context, that the "ethical = less effective" intuition is moderated by the degree to which the consumer believes that the focal ethical issues are important overall. Those consumers who place the highest importance on these ethical issues infer that these products will actually be more effective. This halo effect, however, disappears and ultimately reverses such that the less importance the consumer places on the ethical issues, the less effective they believe the product will be, i...

While prior research has demonstrated the importance of product form and product function as inde... more While prior research has demonstrated the importance of product form and product function as independent antecedents of consumers' evaluations of products, the current research examines the effect of the interdependence between a product's form and function. Across three studies, we demonstrate that consumers prefer products whose form and function are perceived to be unified and provide evidence that this result obtains in part due to consumers' desire for order in the world around them. We also demonstrate that the effect is qualified by product knowledge and felt involvement such that when both are high, a relative preference for disunity emerges.

Our approach for selecting articles to include within this review parallels the approach used by ... more Our approach for selecting articles to include within this review parallels the approach used by Luchs and Swan (2011), albeit for a longer time period. Specifically, we analyze eight of the most influential marketing journals 1 identified by Baumgartner and Pieters (2000) who incorporate both the journal's level of influence and span of influence in their rankings. This latter measure is especially important in the current context given the interdisciplinary nature of product design. Within these journals, we identified articles for our analysis by searching within the EBSCOhost database "Business Source Complete" for articles that contain the term "product design" within their abstracts (AB), subject terms (SU) and/or author supplied keywords (KW). The time period addressed begins in January 1995, coinciding with Bloch's (1995) seminal article on product design, and continues through December 2013. The search yielded 299 articles, although 65 did not sufficiently address product design or were otherwise inconsistent with our focus (e.g., we excluded articles focused on design education), yielding a focal set of 234 articles. Next, we provide an integrated summary of research on product design conducted during this time period, organized within each of the 10 product design topic categories based on Luchs and Swan (2011). We further organize our summary by identifying sub-topics within each topic where possible.

Journal of Consumer Psychology, 2021

Historically, wisdom has been considered a leading character strength for guiding personal well-b... more Historically, wisdom has been considered a leading character strength for guiding personal well-being and the greater good. It has also been routinely considered domain-specific. Hence, consumer researchers should not just borrow conceptualizations or measures of general wisdom from the social sciences or measures of specific wisdom from nonconsumption contexts. Drawing from recent exploratory research on consumer wisdom by Luchs and Mick (Journal of Consumer Psychology, 2018, 28(3), 365-392), we use survey data to test and refine their multidimensional framework as we develop a Consumer Wisdom Scale (CWS). Across five studies, we demonstrate the discriminant, nomological, predictive, and incremental validity of our CWS. We show that it explains unique variance across a variety of indicators of well-being (e.g., satisfaction with life) in comparison to other measures previously associated with well-being (e.g., relationship support). Further, we show that our CWS, versus a general wisdom measure, is more associated with select behaviors relevant to personal well-being and the greater good (e.g., exercise, healthy eating, and financial savings). Closing discussion summarizes our findings and limitations, and suggests future research.