Monthly Archives: October 2014

Call for Papers: Consumer Ownership & Sharing

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In the spirit of last week’s interview feature, we would like to remind you about a current call for papers on “Consumer Ownership & Sharing” for the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, which is co-edited by Russell Belk and Linda Price. Submission deadline is April 1, 2015.

They are basically looking for empirical as well as conceptual papers that address aspects and issues in the areas of ownership and sharing by consumers. All relevant theoretical perspectives and empirical methods are welcomed. Examples of topical areas that might be addressed include:

  • Ownership: Psychology of ownership, sociology of ownership, history and prehistory of ownership, new perspectives on endowment effects, intellectual property, children’s possession and ownership, cultural influences on modes of ownership, collective and societal ownership, environmental issues in ownership, burdens of ownership,limits of ownership, privacy and ownership
  • Sharing: Collaborative consumption, role of the internet in sharing, sharing intangible or digital goods, fictitious commodities, sharing during childhood, renting, leasing, hiring, and buying, communal living, environmental issues in sharing/repurposing, sharing public goods, Information sharing and social media, file sharing

For further information, please visit our Call for Papers section or download the PDF version right here.

Have a great weekend and happy Halloween!

May We Introduce: Russell W. Belk

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“Perhaps the greatest surprise is how extremely proprietary we can be about certain possessions and at the same time how extremely generous we can be with many of our possessions.”

You may have seen that we have this section called Featured, where we collect interviews with leading scholars and those who have advanced the field of ownership. The section is by far not exhaustive and there are many more interviews to come.

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That said we are more than excited to prominently present the first interview with Russell Belk. Russell is a real thought leader in the field of ownership, meaning of possessions, sharing, materialism, gift-giving and research on the extended self and has authored and co-authored more than 550 top journal articles and books. He currently holds the position as Professor and Kraft Foods Canada Chair in Marketing at the Schulich School of Business at York University. Further, he is past president of the International Association of Marketing and Development, and is a fellow, past president, and Film Festival co-founder in the Association for Consumer Research.

In his interview he talks about how he got involved and – more importantly – so passionate about the topic, what his favorite possession is and how he sees the field of ownership in the future. In order to read the full article, click here.

This is The Science of Ownership

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Welcome to The Science of Ownership – a blog about state-of-the art information on ownership in research & practice from a non-legal perspective!

When we talk about ownership, we usually refer to it as a psychological phenomenon. In a nutshell, we refer to the feeling that something is “mine”, a feeling that everybody knows and is able to relate to. Research on ownership has increased in popularity over the past years. There have been 3 special issue calls on ownership in the last year alone! So people are interested but the field is diverse and sometimes incoherent in terms of interpretations and conceptualizations. In part, this is because people across disciplines have been working on it. With fundamental cultural and societal developments and changes such as collaborative consumption, the sharing economy, co-creation of value and the homogenization of global lifestyles ahead of us, collecting, understanding and synthesizing the myriad of insights has become essential.

We have, therefore, declared it a number one priority to merge existing knowledge by building a community of researchers, as eager as us, devoted to looking across disciplines and to developing a common understanding of ownership as a psychological phenomenon.

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The Science of Ownership was created to provide a “one-stop-information-shop” on all things related to the broad academic field of ownership from a non-legal perspective. If you are not familiar with the topic but overwhelmingly curious, you might want to visit the About section first, which features information about this blog as well as the topic per se.

Based on our vision to build a network of people with the common goal to advance our understanding of ownership, we are also going to feature and introduce affiliated researchers and partners on this site. Under Faces & Voices you will find two subpages called Community and Featured. On the Community page, you will find an overview of people who are in one or the other way affiliated with ownership research in general and with this blog in particular. Anyone interested to contribute or appear on this blog is welcome to join our community. Contact us and you will be added to this very page.

On the Featured page, you will find interviews with leading scholars and those who have advanced the field of ownership.

Of course there will also be featured articles and posts on the topic, either written or curated by our contributing team. For those interested in the details there will be a comprehensive, frequently updated reference list on publications touching the topic of ownership. Again we are grateful for any pointers. There is also a growing collection of useful links, resources and happenings.

Finally, we consider this project a collaborative and dynamic one, which means that we intend to prosper and grow without strict limitations. There is much more to come in the future.

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Behind this blog stands a passionate group of researchers from the Institute for Marketing & Consumer Research – or m.core if you prefer it short – at WU Vienna University of Economics and Business. Headed by Prof. Bernadette Kamleitner, our team consists of associate professors, PhD students, as well as international research partners and is constantly growing and evolving.

Some of us have dedicated their entire careers to the topic of ownership, some of us are exploring it in new and innovative contexts, some of us are old stagers already and some of us have just started. Independent of age, experience, context or expertise, we share one common attitude though: all of us are in this 100%. The diversity that we represent in our research will benefit this project and we are looking forward to add to this mixture by inviting you to join our community. For more information about the contributing team of The Science of Ownership click here.

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The topic is massive, it has occupied many minds and so should this blog. This blog is a collaborative project, we cordially invite YOU to contribute as well – either as a guest author, content and resource scout, or featured as an affiliate and community member. Click here to directly contact us if you are interested in joining the community or want more information on the various collaboration options we provide!