Building Bridges for an Interconnected Field of Consumer Research

We finalize this editorial as the new team of editors has been announced and our editorial term is winding down. First and foremost, we extend our sincere congratulations to Darren Dahl, Eileen Fischer, Gita Johar, and Vicki Morwitz. Below, we share our observations on the consumer research field. This is the last of a triptych of editorials authored by our team. The first described our desired compact with the field and was therefore forward looking. The second commented on integrity in the wider academic community. There, we took some time and space to reflect, but we were also addressing a specific set of concerns and events. In this final editorial, we provide reflections from the vantage point of having had the privilege to be stewards of JCR . These reflections result from our listening to the concerns of the consumer research community, as well as from our experiences while guiding JCR . They provide our sense of the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for each one of us as consumer researchers. Our core approach, both in our editorship more broadly and in this final editorial, is to consider consumer research as an interconnected field. JCR has an integral role in the field of consumer research, and we have worked to guide the journal such that it will set a healthy direction forward. We agree that “there are no problems we cannot solve together, and very few that we can solve by ourselves” (Lyndon Johnson). We advocate working together, where the working group is defined as consumer research rather than by subarea, paradigmatic approach, or research niche. Our field is at an interesting historical point, arguably a crossroads. Many building blocks are in place, from Consumer Culture Theory, to Information Processing, to Behavioral Decision Theory, with robust paradigms, methods, and …