"PhD position Perfectly Imperfect: Stimulating consumer acceptance of imperfect products for a sustainable future"

Job Description

A garment with a loose thread, a piece of furniture with a scratch, an ugly cucumber…have you ever wondered why consumers tend to reject every (small) imperfection in products? Are you motivated to delve into the psychological processes underlying consumers’ aversion to imperfection and why this leads to unsustainable behaviours? Are you enthusiastic about developing and empirically testing innovative (marketing) ways to motivate consumers towards accepting and embracing imperfect products? If so, then we have the perfect opportunity for you!

The Marketing and Consumer Behaviour group of Wageningen University is looking for an enthusiastic and ambitious PhD candidate to fulfil the essential position in the NWO funded project “Perfectly Imperfect: Stimulating consumer acceptance of imperfect products for a sustainable future”. The project aims to develop a thorough understanding of consumers’ psychological processes concerning product imperfection, and sustainable solutions for products with small imperfections.

Human natural resource usage exceeds planetary limits, and resource usage reduction is vital to fulfil the needs of current and future generations. Yet, throughout the production and consumption process, many resources are wasted as any minor irregularity or flaw in ingredients, materials, or products leads to removal from the production process, shelf rejection, consumer rejection, and ultimately wastage. Consumers avoid buying products with superficial (packaging) damage, and post-purchase, products are rapidly viewed as imperfect and disposed of long before they become mal- or non-functioning. Stimulating consumers to accept, purchase, and consume products with minor imperfections would therefore support more sustainable production and consumption.

In general, the “Perfectly Imperfect” project aims to provide the much-needed innovative theories on consumers’ psychological processes concerning product imperfection, and to develop pioneering strategies that stimulate consumers to purchase, embrace and consume products with minor imperfections. As emotions tend to underly consumers’ responses to product imperfections, the project strongly focuses on emotions and subjective experiences to develop solutions. To do so, you will apply a unique combination of different research methodologies: interviews and workshops to develop a thorough understanding of the psychological process, experiments and field experiments to develop and test potential solutions for imperfect products, and agent-based modeling to examine the effects of the solutions across the population and over time. You will thereby focus on foods, fashion, furniture and electronics with small imperfections, to examine whether the same processes and solutions hold for different product categories. The ultimate goal is to provide a more sustainable future for these “perfectly imperfect” products.

Requirements

You will work here. The Marketing and Consumer Behaviour group is one of the leading research and teaching groups in the fields of marketing (research) and consumer behavior related to food, sustainability, and agribusiness. The research is led by Prof. Dr. Ilona de Hooge, who will be your promotor in this project. In addition, throughout the project you may work together with Prof. Dr. Erica van Herpen (Wageningen University, expert on sustainable consumer behaviour and food waste), and Prof. Dr. Ruth Mugge (Delft University, expert on design for circular and sustainable consumer behavior), depending on your needs and wishes. One part of the project focuses on developing agent-based models for product imperfection, which will be done in collaboration with Dr. Yara Khaluf (Wageningen University, expert on agent-based modelling).

As a PhD candidate, you will be enrolled in the Wageningen University Graduate School (WASS). The Graduate school provides an inspiring research environment with an excellent team of supervisors, academic staff, and a mentor. You will also participate in a Doctorate Education Programme, in which you further develop your research, teaching, and interdisciplinary skills.

Eligible candidates need to have:

• completed a MSc University degree;
• a background in consumer behavior (e.g. consumer science, marketing, decision-making, (social) psychology, behavioral economics). Other backgrounds will not be considered;
• a high level of/interest in (sustainable) marketing/consumer behavior, with a focus on theory development and behavioral change;
• a high level/interest in emotions;
• statistical/ modelling skills and experience with quantitative data collection (survey research, lab and field experimental research, and agent-based modeling are parts of this project, so experience with at least one of these methods is required);
• an interest in conducting qualitative research (conducting interviews is part of this project);
• clear scientific ambition in the conduct and publication of the research (the project is expected to result in a PhD thesis and scientific publications);
• ability to work independently as well as in a team, take initiative, and work towards results in a systematic way;
• the curiosity and motivation to address important real-world problems through rigorous and ambitious academic inquiry;
• Excellence English language skills, both written and verbal;
• an interest in student-focused teaching (10% of your position will include teaching);
• For this position your command of the English language is expected to be at C1 level. Sometimes it is necessary to submit an internationally recognized Certificate of Proficiency in the English Language. More information can be found here. Fluency in the Dutch language is very welcome, as the project includes interviews with Dutch consumers and field experiments.

Conditions of Employment

Wageningen University & Research offers excellent terms of employment. A few highlights from our Collective Labour Agreement include: Partially paid parental leave; working hours that can be discussed and arranged so that they allow for the best possible work-life balance; there is a strong focus on vitality and you can make use of the sports facilities available on campus for a small fee; a fixed year-end bonus of 8.3%; excellent pension scheme. In addition to these first-rate employee benefits, you will receive a fully funded PhD position and you will be offered a course program tailored to your needs and the research team. The gross salary for the first year is € 3.059,- per month rising to € 3.881,- in the fourth year in according to the Collective Labour Agreements for Dutch Universities (CAO-NU) (scale P). This is based on a full-time working week of 38 hours. We offer a temporary contract for 18 months which will be extended for the duration of the project (4 years) if you perform well.