Research Program

Rob Kleine's research explores the symbolic communicative properties of consumer goods. Questions such as these motivate his research program:

• How do the products we use in our day to day lives shape our understanding of who we are?
• What is the relative contribution of products, vis a vis other social structural factors such as media and social acquaintances, to the construction of our understanding of who we are?
• How can products and possessions help or hinder a person's efforts to cultivate or dispose a particular identity?

Kleine's research is published in The Journal of Consumer Research, The Journal of Consumer Psychology, The Journal of the Academy of Marketing Sciences, Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, and Advances in Consumer Research. Read Kleine's publications.

Kleine received the 1992 Robert Ferber Award f