Melanie Wallendorf

Areas of Expertise

•  Sociological aspects of consumer behavior
•  Political ideology and consumption
•  Socio-cultural embeddedness of price fairness
•  Ethnic, gender, racial, and class differences in consumption and its meanings
•  Socio-cultural embeddedness of youths'' understanding of Smoking

Current Research

Weinberger, Michelle F. and Melanie Wallendorf, "Intracommunity Gifting at the Intersection of Contemporary Moral & Market Economies," Journal of Consumer Research, forthcoming June 2012.

Recent Publications

Weinberger, Michelle F. and Melanie Wallendorf, "Intracommunity Gifting at the Intersection of Contemporary Moral & Market Economies," Journal of Consumer Research, forthcoming June 2012.

Freeman, Dan, Merrie Brucks, Melanie Wallendorf, Wendy Boland (2009), “Youths’ Understandings of Cigarette Advertisements,” Addictive Behaviors 34 (January), 36-42.

Jeff Wang and Melanie Wallendorf (2006), "Materialism, Status Signaling, and Product Satisfaction," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 34 (October), 494-505.

Edward McQuarrie, Linda Scott, John F. Sherry, Jr., and Melanie Wallendorf (2006), “Roundtable on Advertising as a Cultural Form,” Advertising and Society Review, vol. 6, #4 (January).

Dan Freeman, Merrie Brucks, and Melanie Wallendorf (2005), “Young Children’s Understandings of Cigarette Smoking,” Addiction 100 (10: October), 1537-1545.

David Crockett and Melanie Wallendorf (2004), “The Role of Normative Political Ideology in Consumer Behavior,” Journal of Consumer Research 31 (December), 511-528.

Melanie Wallendorf (2001), “Literally Literacy,” Journal of Consumer Research 27 (March), 505-512.

David Crockett and Melanie Wallendorf (1998), "Sociological Perspectives on Imposed School Dress Codes: Consumption as Attempted Suppression of Class and Group Symbolism," Journal of Macromarketing 18 (Fall), 115-131.

(For full list of publications see "View or download CV link" in "Contact Info and Links")

Professional Associations

• Association for Consumer Research
• American Marketing Association
• American Sociological Association

Honors and Awards

• Recognition in 2005 by Top Tech News for article entitled "Market-Oriented Ethnography: Interpretation Building and Marketing Strategy Formulation" co-authored with Eric Arnould.  Article was named as one of “10 Marketing Ideas from Academia” that any “self-respecting marketer should keep in their toolbox.”
• Honorable Mention Award in the 2005 Ferber competition to David Crockett for his dissertation-based paper, “The Role of Normative Political Ideology in Consumer Behavior,” published in Journal of Consumer Research, December 2004, co-authored with Melanie Wallendorf.
• Winner of 1992 Association for Consumer Research Award for Best Article in Journal of Consumer Research 1989-1991, for article entitled "The Sacred and the Profane in Consumer Behavior: Theodicy on the Odyssey," co-authored with Russell W. Belk and John F. Sherry, Jr.  $1000 prize for each author.
• Best Paper Award for "Domestic Consumption Rituals and the Reproduction of American Households," co-authored with Eric Arnould, Conference on Family and Household Consumption and Production, University of California at Irvine, 1991.
• University of Arizona Foundation Creative Teaching Award, 1986

Teaching Interests

Socio-Cultural Aspects of Consumer Behavior

Market-Oriented Ethnographic Methods

Marketing Theory