The Practice of Transformative Consumer Research - Some Issues and Suggestions

Transformative consumer research (TCR) is a new academic initiative among researchers committed to studying the role consumption plays in the major social problems of our day. These problems may involve the over consumption of products among the obese, the addicted, and the materialistic, or the under consumption of products among the hungry, the homeless, and the poor. The goal of transformative research is to do practical research that can be used by consumers, activists, policy makers, and businesses to improve consumer well-being. In this article, we propose rethinking the way that research is traditionally conducted in consumer research to make it more conducive to achieving TCR objectives. We start with the conventional approaches to consumer research and then offer alternative approaches to increase the likelihood that research will deliver useful and useable results.