Research Pathways for Societal Impact: A Typology of Relational Engagements for Consumer Psychology Research

Abstract

Consumer psychology research achieves desirable societal impact when it affects positive changes in the world. Increasingly, researchers seek to understand how to increase the impact of their work. For research to have societal impact, scholars must engage with stakeholders ranging from consumers, businesses, and nonprofits, to media and the government. Earlier research presented a relational engagement approach that defined societal impact as a rewarding process involving knowledge creation, awareness, implementation, and societal benefits (J.L. Ozanne et al., 2017). This article builds upon these insights by conceptualizing a typology of relational engagements that provides different research pathways for those researchers who want to effect positive changes in society.