Kogod School of Business marketing professor Sonya Grier knows that the business world doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Honored with American University’s 2022 Faculty Award for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Grier has committed extensive time and effort to fully understanding issues of racial equity and interracial relations in the marketplace. She recently published a paper, “From Anxious Spaces to Harmonious Relations? Interracial Marketplace Interactions Through the Lens of Consumer Psychology,” which expands on her previous research by reviewing existing literature on race in the marketplace and related topics.
“Interracial interactions are ubiquitous and central to consumer experiences, yet there’s no consistent literature on the topic,” Professor Grier explained. “The basic foundational understanding of what we know about how consumers approach or avoid interactions with people of different races was in disparate studies and fields.”
Professor Grier’s focus on the role of race in marketing interactions stems from a broader exploration of consumer psychology—where her research began. Grier worked in both academia and policy development throughout her career, studying targeted marketing in fields ranging from food to video games. Though her research initially took an experimental approach, Grier quickly realized that these topics should be explored through a different lens.
“It was clear that an interdisciplinary perspective was needed. Experiments were not going to tell me everything that I needed to know,” Grier recalled. “I was able to better understand the supports and constraints that guide what and how people consume and the outcomes of that consumption.”
This broader approach allowed Professor Grier to consider how marketing issues interact with sociological, psychological, and cultural influences. She cofounded the Race in the Marketplace Network (RIM) to provide a support system for researchers exploring diversity and equity in marketing.
“Some of these people are the only ones focused on these topics in their school or university,” Grier said. “If they are a scholar of color, they may also be the only scholar of color in their university. So, the RIM network acts as a place for people investigating these issues.”
Though approaching marketplace issues from an interdisciplinary perspective is vital, it also requires a broader research net. To fully explore interracial marketplace interactions for her paper, “From Anxious Spaces to Harmonious Relations,” Professor Grier studied literature across several domains to find common themes and gaps in knowledge.