Research
Research Priorities
Informed by insightful discussions with global business leaders, our research priorities bring attention to the most pressing issues facing the retail industry. The following research priorities have been established to highlight critical areas of need for retail knowledge generation and to guide grant funding and white paper development through 2026.
- Exploring consumer decision-making in the purchase journey
- Impact of generative AI on retail
- Sustainability and social responsibility
- Democratizing retail with technology
To address this range of challenging questions within the retail landscape, the Lundgren Retail Collaborative is committed to generating data-driven insights through the development of original white papers and by funding academic research that expands the industry’s understanding of emerging trends and strategic opportunities.
White Papers
Volume 2 Coming Soon!
Riding the AI Wave: Opportunities and Risks of AI for the Retail Industry
Developed to give retailers and educators a roadmap for implementing generative AI in their organizations and into curriculum, Riding the AI Wave: Opportunities and Risks of AI for the Retail Industry includes C-suite perspectives from top brands, backed by studies from GenAI authorities.
While the technology offers undeniable operational benefits, Riding the AI Wave: Opportunities and Risks of AI for the Retail Industry also warns of a looming threat: the erosion of talent development pathways. As AI takes over tasks that were traditionally assigned to entry-level employees, recent graduates are losing out on formative work experiences.
Contributors include Terry J. Lundgren, TJL Advisors, LLC Founder, CEO; Keith Credendino, Chief Information Officer, Macy’s Inc.; Krishnaveni Gnanasekaran, Senior Vice President, Enterprise Data Analytics & Technology, Macy’s Inc.; and Desiree Gosby, Vice President, Emerging Technology, Walmart Global Tech; Marc Pritchard, Chief Brand Officer at Procter & Gamble.
If you would like information about this white paper, please contact Lundgren Retail Collaborative co-director Jennifer Savary for more information.
Volume 1 | Evolving Voice: Future of the Workplace
In 2024, an estimated 4 million new college graduates entered the workforce, but many hiring organizations are still struggling to adapt to the fundamental changes in business that have transpired in the past five years. To address questions related to the workplace of the future, the Lundgren Retail Collaborative research team conducted a study examining attitudes about workplace preferences among Next Gen workers. The findings are presented in our first volume of Evolving Voice: Future of the Workplace.
Our research shows that Next-Gen employees have a greater desire for in-person work environments than employers may think, with 68 percent of participants preferring a hybrid office environment. Nearly a quarter (23 percent) chose in-person work, while only 9 percent desire a fully remote work environment. In addition, the research showed that preferences are more nuanced than in-person versus remote.
Download Evolving Voice: Future of the Workplace
2025-2026 Research Grants Awards
The Lundgren Retail Collaborative is proud to announce the recipients of its 2025-2026 Research Grant Awards. Designed to support research leading to peer-reviewed publications, these competitive grants help fund retail-related academic research that explores emerging opportunities at the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and the retail industry. Following are the 2025-2026 grant recipients and project summaries:
Mapping Retail Potential: Using AI and Tapestry Segmentation to Uncover Customer Personas and Predict Growth Markets for E-Commerce Brands
Author: Robert Gabriel Grateron
This research proposes a novel framework for mapping and understanding e-commerce consumer behavior through spatial analysis and AI.
AI, The Trust Doctor
Author: Dr. Oliver Schilke
Popular belief holds that generative AI cannot match humans’ interpersonal skills in navigating complex social interactions. This project challenges that assumption by investigating AI’s capacity for trust repair, a context in which interpersonal skills are essential for taking the counterpart’s perspective and alleviating relational strain.
Gender Stereotypes and Financial Decision-Making in Retail: The Role of AI
Authors: Sydni Do and Martin Reimann
Building upon our previous research funded by the Lundgren Retail Center, this project will empirically test the influence of gender stereotypes on how consumers make financial decisions in a retail context, including whether they adopt the use of AI financial assistants.
Consumer Political Ideology and the Second-Hand Retail Market
Authors: Anastasiya Ghosh and Pureum Kim
This research project explores how differences in political ideology drive consumers’ willingness to purchase secondhand items from different retailers.
AI-Powered Embodied Avatars in XR for Enhancing Consumer Engagement and Decision-Making in Retail Environments
Authors: Ehsan Azimi and Huanrui Yang
This project proposes the development and evaluation of AI-powered embodied avatars in extended reality (XR) environments to enhance consumer engagement and decision-making in retail contexts.
Privacy-Personalization Paradox and Parasocial Relationships in AI-Mediated Retailing
Author: Kathleen J. Kennedy
The privacy-personalization paradox--where consumers voice privacy concerns yet still share personal data for customized experiences--remains one of digital commerce’s most enduring puzzles. This study will explore the gap between what consumers say and what they do for effective and ethical retail implementation.
Human Roles in Multi-Agent AI Teams for Ad Copy Creation
Authors: Agrim Sachdeva and Alfred Benedikt Brendel
Recent advances in generative AI allow organizations to design dynamic multi-agent teams that can include both human and AI members. This project explores the role of humans as either active team members or supervisors within multiagent human-AI teams tasked with generating retail ad copy.
Real-Time Churn Prediction Using Fine-Grained User Behavior Data for Enhanced Retail Strategies
Authors: Seokjun Youn and Sudha Ram
Customer retention is an important retail performance driver. This study aims to develop a framework that detects mobile user churn within the first minutes of app usage, thus enabling retailers to tailor marketing interventions or advertising strategies in real time.
2024-2025 Research Grants and Key Findings
Authors: Joseph S. Valacich, Paul A. Weisgarber, Jeffery L. Jenkins, Markus Weinmann, Christopher Coors
Project Summary: This research investigates the efficacy of using mouse cursor movements to assess consumer interest in online product banners, a critical concern for e-commerce in the face of increasing restrictions on third-party cookies. By examining how cursor speed and precision vary in response to relevant versus non-relevant product banners, we explore alternative methods for measuring user engagement in a privacy-conscious digital landscape. The study is grounded in Biased Competition Theory and the Response Activation Model, which suggests that relevant products elicit more efficient, goal-directed mouse movements, while irrelevant products introduce cognitive interference, slowing down interactions and increasing movement deviations. Four experiments were conducted to test these hypotheses.
Authors: Martin Reimann, Sydni Fomas Do
Project Summary: This study demonstrates that stereotypes portraying women as impulsive spenders and less financially knowledgeable than men are widespread and meaningfully influence retail financial decision-making. When these stereotypes are subtly activated, women show greater financial risk aversion compared to men. References to stereotypes also increased debt anxiety, even when receiving positive feedback. However, an intervention study shows that brief messaging that challenges these stereotypes can reduce women’s risk aversion. These findings highlight the powerful impact of stereotypes on financial behavior and suggest that targeted messaging can boost women’s financial confidence in retail contexts.
Authors: Seokjun Youn, Yeongin Kim, Kyung Sung Jung, Young Kwark
Project Summary: This project examined the effects of regulations requiring large online marketplaces to share sales and customer data with smaller third-party sellers. Using an analytical model, it explored issues like unequal access to data and varying levels of data literacy. Findings show that data-sharing can level the playing field, but only when the data is high-quality and sellers are equipped to use it. In competitive markets, sharing tends to benefit all parties. However, in less competitive spaces, it may harm smaller sellers unless paired with analytics training or tools.
Authors: Arash Roghani, Mrinal Ghosh
Authors: Sydni Fomas Do, Pete Zhou, Jennifer Savary
Authors: Mo Xiao, Lance Gui
Project Summary: This project explored the role of pharmacies in the U.S. opioid crisis, using a novel model that accounts for consumer choice across legal and black-market channels. Researchers developed an algorithm to identify pharmacies likely engaged in non-medical sales and found that there is a high probability that 8% of pharmacies dispense opioids for non-medical use (probability greater than 90%). Data from 2008–2010 shows that shutting down pharmacies engaged in non-medical sales, often pushes users to other pharmacies or illicit markets. This increases the risk that purchasers of non-medical opioids will turn to more dangerous narcotics such as heroin and fentanyl. The study recommends pairing enforcement with treatment-focused policies.