SPECIAL ISSUES

Evolving financial behavior, an unpredictable public policy atmosphere, and an unparalleled global pandemic have collaborated to disrupt nonprofit fundraising. The COVID-19 pandemic alone exacerbated consumer demands for nonprofit services while curtailing nonprofit organizations' ability to fundraise. Without fundraising, nonprofit organizations cannot achieve their mission or support their causes, leading to a precarious situation for societal well-being. Meanwhile, consumers are changing their financial behaviors, with younger generations often going cashless. At the same time, governments continue to change policies that affect nonprofit organizations. In keeping with the transformative consumer research movement, the present study provides a conceptual framework for the state of nonprofit fundraising amid the challenges associated with changes in financial behavior and public policy, coupled with the effects of the global pandemic. Marketing strategies for fundraising success are presented to aid nonprofits going forward and serve societal interests.

Sharenting (using social media to share content about one's child) is a progressively common phenomenon enabled by society's increased connection to digital technology. Although it can encourage positive connections to others, it also creates concerns related to children's privacy and well-being. In this paper, we establish boundaries and terminology related to sharenting in an evolving digital world. We conceptualize a modern sharenting ecosystem involving key stakeholders (parents, children, community, commercial institutions, and policymakers), by applying consumer vulnerability theory to explore the increased online connection that occurs as work, school, and socialization become increasingly more virtual. Next, we expand the characterization of sharenting by introducing a spectrum of sharenting awareness that categorizes three types of sharenting (active, passive, and invisible). Finally, we provide a research agenda for policymakers and consumer welfare researchers.

Digital financial platforms have become an integral part of consumers' lives–resulting in the datafication of everyday life and potential for uniquely impacting financial well-being. Extending previous transformative consumer research, we suggest financial well-being must center the ways digital financial platforms and their resulting data are increasingly enmeshed with financial decision making and consumption. Drawing on a theoretical lens of platformization, we propose the Platformed Money Ecosystem, which accounts for increased embeddedness of digital financial platforms within consumers' lives and the subtlety of how everyday life is transformed into data: producing data at the micro-level, monetizing data at the meso-level, and regulating data at the macro-level. In conceptualizing the Platformed Money Ecosystem, we identify three data-informed considerations for scholars and policymakers to reimagine financial well-being: protecting consumer data, limiting data biases, and supporting data literacy.

In 2021, the United States government provided a third economic impact payment (EIP) for those designated as experiencing greater need due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With a particular focus on scarcity and ontological insecurity, we collected time-separated data prior to, and following, the third EIP to examine how these variables shape consumer allocation of stimulus funds. We find that scarcity is positively associated with feelings of ontological insecurity, which, interestingly, correlates to a greater allocation of stimulus funds toward charitable giving. We further find evidence that mutability moderates the relationship between ontological insecurity and allocations to charitable giving. In other words, it is those who feel most insecure, but perceive that their resource situation is within their control, who allocated more to charity giving. We discuss the implications of these findings for theory, policy-makers, and the transformative consumer research (TCR) movement.

A growing number of Transformative Consumer Research (TCR) academic community members are establishing research partnerships with Social Impact Organizations (SIOs) such as nonprofits, public policy entities, and other societally focused organizations and initiatives. These relational engagement partnerships with SIOs are vital for TCR researchers because SIOs have deep connections to people and communities where transformative change takes place. We leverage insights from TCR researchers and SIOs engaged in relational engagement partnerships to outline a framework for such partnerships that supports and sustains these collaborations, furthers knowledge creation, and lays the groundwork for social impact. Our goal is to offer a framework for relational engagement partnerships that can propagate within the TCR community, encouraging fruitful collaborations between TCR researchers and SIOs that have the potential to create positive social impact.

A growing number of Transformative Consumer Research (TCR) academic community members are establishing research partnerships with Social Impact Organizations (SIOs) such as nonprofits, public policy
entities, and other societally focused organizations and initiatives. These relational engagement partnerships with SIOs are vital for TCR researchers because SIOs have deep connections to people and communities where transformative change takes place. We leverage insights from TCR researchers and SIOs engaged in relational engagement partnerships to outline a framework for such partnerships that supports and sustains these collaborations, furthers knowledge creation, and lays the groundwork for social impact. Our goal is to offer a framework for relational engagement partnerships that can propagate within the TCR community, encouraging fruitful collaborations between TCR researchers and SIOs that have the potential to create positive social impact.

This research aims to examine the co-production of a product as a source of psychological well-being for consumers. A quantitative experimental study on the theme of cosmetics products was conducted using a sample of 844 women.It comprised three scenarios corresponding to low (finished products), intermediate (products sold in kits) and high (the purchase of cosmetic ingredients) co-production. The results show that co-producing an offer is a source of psychological well-being.This effect can be explained by an increase in perceived benefits and perceived value. The finding of interest for management is the identification of factors that improve individuals’ psychological well-being.

Traditional masculinity ideologies dictate men should be tough, self-reliant and display restrictive emotionality. Men who seek mental health services, a behavior that typically involves expressing feelings and showing dependence, are often subject to stigma. The purpose of the study is to examine the gendered perceptions of men who seek help for mental health concerns, as well as how masculine advertisements moderate these perceptions. After viewing either masculine or control advertisements, participants read descriptions of men who sought help for psychological or physical symptoms and provided masculinity ratings in a task ostensibly unrelated to the advertisements. Across two experiments, participants perceived the male target who sought help for psychological symptoms, a behavior incongruent with the traditional masculinity ideologies, as less masculine than his counterpart seeking help for physical symptoms. Importantly, exposure to masculine advertisements attenuated the gendered perceptions for psychological help-seeking: viewing masculine advertisements led participants to deliberately reflect on society’s expectations for men to be physically masculine and tough and the extent to which men should conform to these standards.These reflections counteract the effect of stigma on the gendered perceptions of men seeking help for mental health concerns. The representation of men as masculine and rugged in advertisements is believed to contribute to public perceptions of men seeking help for mental health concerns. Yet the current research demonstrates an unexpected effect of viewing masculine advertisements in attenuating the gendered perceptions of men’s help-seeking.