Developing markets are a challenge for researchers who study them and for governments, business leaders, and citizens who strive to improve the quality of life in them. The limitations of the dominant development paradigm coupled with the need to focus on consumers provide tremendous opportunities to engage in truly transformative research. Toward this outcome, several interactive forces must be understood and addressed during research design, management, and implementation. The purpose of this essay is to provide a synthesis—that is, a framework in the form of a conceptual model—with practical applications to transformative research in developing markets and, ultimately, with the broader objective to stimulate new conceptualizations, research, and best practices to transform consumer well-being.

This study proposes that certain religious and spiritual beliefs—specifically, representations of God—play an indirect but influential role in cognitive processing of (1) sustainability behaviors, (2) the importance of proenvironmental policies, and (3) their willingness to vote for proenvironmental policies. Across three studies, this research investigates the role of three representations of God: (1) God as an authoritarian personified being, (2) God as a benevolent personified being, and (3) God as a mystical cosmic force. The results of Study 1 suggest that attitude toward nature mediates the relationship between these representations of God and three sustainability behaviors. Similarly, the results of Study 2 suggest that attitude toward nature mediates the relationship between these representations of God and the importance of proenvironmental policies. In addition, the authors find self-transcendence to be an antecedent of belief in a mystical representation of God. Study 3 includes awe as an antecedent of self-transcendence and generally replicates the findings from Study 2 regarding the role of the representations of God in people's cognitive processing of their willingness to vote for proenvironmental policies.

Recently, scholars have been calling attention to the macro-social and institutional structures shaping development and welfare. In this study we offer a socio-temporally situated understanding of quality of life (QOL) in a developing country setting and investigate the effects of macro structures on consumer well-being. Specifically, we focus on neoliberal development (led by the business sector, rather than led or directed by the government) and examine how a neoliberal transformation of the marketplace affects consumers’ QOL perceptions. The context of our research is Turkey, a developing country that has been an avid follower of neoliberal policies since the 1990s. We focus on three key macro-social developments that have been shaping Turkish society in the past decades – globalization, religion, and economic growth – and seek to understand how these forces influence consumers’ satisfaction with life. Our study contributes to the literature on development and QOL by first, showing the moderating effect of income, and second, introducing faith and global brands as important variables in conceptualizing QOL.

The first macromarketing seminar held in 1976 represented a first attempt to “hack the system” of business schools to bring a societal focus to the teaching of marketing. This effort resulted eventually in macromarketing becoming a major field of the marketing discipline. Today, forces outside the business school are pointing business schools to broaden their curricula to include social responsibility in the form of macromarketing, sustainability, and marketing for a better world. The purpose of this article is to discuss the challenges and opportunities of teaching macromarketing and sustainability concepts to business students so that more macromarketing managers would develop and exert their influence in marketplaces around the world. Important points include (a) the imperative for macromarketing-minded educators to advocate for curriculum changes in their own business schools, and (b) the need for macromarketing-minded educators to become more capable teachers of macromarketing and sustainability content with students more skeptical about such content. This article offers a constructivist approach to setting the stage for students engaging macromarketing and sustainability content for the first time. Embracing the paradox of managerial macromarketing and integrating experiential learning highlight this approach.