The Game Changer’s Dilemma: Consumer Response to Inclusive Product Design in the Video Game Industry (with Ying Li) (Under review)

Research on Corporate Sociopolitical Activism has largely focused on public statements as the primary channel through which firms take stances on sociopolitical issues. However, firms have also embedded sociopolitical commitments, particularly to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, directly into their products, making “inclusive product design” perceived by consumers a salient yet understudied form of CSA. Drawing on research on signaling, reactance, and authenticity, we theorize that directly experiencing inclusive features through product consumption may activate mechanisms that operate alongside ideological alignment: authenticity concerns, perceived imposition, and perceived quality trade-offs. Using data on 10,193 video games reviewed between 2014 and 2022, a period marked by the growing politicization of DEI in public discourse, we find evidence of an aggregate negative response to inclusive product design. This response is amplified when games include post-access monetization, which makes commercial motives conspicuous, but mitigated when games afford players greater autonomy or receive credible external quality endorsements that alleviate quality concerns. A preregistered experiment corroborates our findings, particularly among politically conservative consumers, and shows that perceived quality trade-offs operate differently across ideological groups. We contribute to CSA research by extending it into the product domain and advancing understanding of consumption-specific mechanisms that shape responses.

Product Multidimensionality in Consumer Evaluation (with Olga Khessina & Samira Reis) (Working paper)

Unlike organizations, products are directly used by consumers, making functionality a foundational dimension of their evaluation. The study shows that the dimension along which a product departs from convention is a boundary condition for optimal distinctiveness theory: distinctiveness in features beyond those necessary for operation follows the conventional inverted-U pattern, whereas functional distinctiveness is generally penalized. 

First Amendment Protection of Video Games and Market Returns to Artistic Positioning (Working paper)

Examines whether legal recognition of a contested category alters the market returns to producer positioning. Using the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association (2011), which held that video games are protected expression under the First Amendment, the study finds evidence that, following the ruling, returns to artistic positioning increased for Mature-rated games, the products most directly implicated by the case. 

Strategic Imagery in Craft Chocolate (with Olga Khessina & Yeaji Kim) (Manuscript in preparation)

Uses CLIP vision-language embeddings to compare craft chocolate packaging with mass-market and higher-end visual reference categories, finding that resemblance to traditional wine labels supports artisanal positioning.