Reclaiming Marketplace Inclusion as a Marketing Imperative

At a time when the cultural and political climate worldwide has cast doubt on inclusion-related initiatives in business, education, and society, marketing scholarship plays a vital role. Across the six continents represented in this issue, the sociopolitical conditions shaping who is included in markets—and who is not—are shifting rapidly, and not always in the direction of greater inclusivity. In moments such as these, scholarly silence is not neutrality; it risks reinforcing the very exclusions that marketing, at its best, seeks to understand and redress. Marketing scholars are uniquely positioned to respond to these moments. We have the analytical frameworks to document exclusion as a market phenomenon, the empirical tools to measure its costs, and the policy interface to translate findings into action. As institutional actors step back from inclusion commitments, the discipline cannot afford to do the same.

This special issue demonstrates that inclusion is not peripheral to marketing. Rather, inclusion is integral to the functioning of markets. Marketing's relevance depends on its ability to reflect and serve diverse communities within global marketplaces. Marketplace inclusion sits squarely at the intersection of marketing scholarship and public policy action, with direct implications for how markets are regulated, designed, and held accountable. Behind every policy debate and scholarly argument in this issue are real consumers navigating real markets. When firms retreat from inclusion commitments under political pressure, they are not making neutral market decisions. They are making moral ones, with consequences for consumers, markets, and the discipline that studies them. An inclusive marketplace is neither an idealized abstraction nor a distant aspiration. As the commentaries in this issue illustrate, marketplace inclusion is foundational to the study and practice of markets and marketing, even as increasingly overt political and institutional forces seek to erode it. The global dismantling of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs across corporations, universities, and government agencies makes the timing of this issue especially urgent. Taken together, these essays show that inclusion is not an optional extension of marketing thought, but a core condition for markets to operate fairly, effectively, and sustainably.

From the composition of our editorial team to the voices reflected in our commentaries, we envisioned an issue that does not just discuss marketplace inclusion but embodies it. We sought to align process with purpose: If inclusion is to be reclaimed as a marketing imperative, it must also shape how knowledge is curated, whose perspectives are elevated, and what forms of expertise are recognized. Our four coeditors bring diverse geographical, cultural, gender, and racial perspectives and work in a range of scholarly environments. Yet, we sought broader input during the planning process by convening a global advisory committee of senior and midcareer marketing scholars, who provided strategic, intellectual, and developmental guidance. In selecting invited authors, we sought marketing and consumer behavior scholars whose work engages marketplace inclusion in its broadest sense. Although not every scholar in this area is represented, we aimed for a genuine plurality of voices across geographic regions and career stages. We also encouraged collaborations among junior and senior scholars and with practitioners, while giving invitees latitude to choose their topics within broad commentary themes.

We are excited to share a powerful compilation of 34 commentaries from 114 authors working in institutions across 23 countries and six continents. Together, these authors examine marketplace inclusion as a marketing imperative by analyzing and critiquing historical and contemporary approaches to inclusion in both traditional and digital market spaces. Taken together, the commentaries move from questions of who is recognized to where exclusion operates across regions and subgroups, to how inclusion should be conceptualized and measured, and finally to the digital spaces where new exclusions are rapidly emerging. Six themes capture the underlying threads running through the commentaries: (1) critiquing the marketing academy and calling for it to be truly inclusive; (2) broadening the range of groups that deserve additional consideration; (3) shining a light on specific regions or subgroups and the contextual enablers and barriers to their market participation; (4) questioning the foundations of current approaches to inclusion; (5) assessing the tools for evaluating inclusive market spaces and designing inclusive market offerings; and (6) highlighting the urgency of wider inclusion considerations in digital spaces and technologies. Across these themes, the commentaries collectively challenge narrow, depoliticized, and often taken-for-granted understandings of inclusion, while offering more expansive frameworks for thinking about participation, access, representation, and justice in the marketplace.

We begin with a set of commentaries that ask the academy to reconsider who and what are recognized as worthy of inclusion in marketing and public policy research. Barnes and Uduehi (2026) warn of the risks of a narrow lens in “The Danger of Inclusion as Low-Hanging Fruit or Forbidden Fruit: Toward Structural Legitimacy in Marketing Scholarship,” a caution nicely complemented by Bone, Christensen, and Loveless’s (2026) call for evidence and an ethical commitment to human dignity in “Academic Courage in a Politicized Marketplace: How Evidence-First Race Research Can Move Policy (and Markets) Forward.” These two commentaries stand out for their focus on evidence-based assessments of policies and interventions to increase inclusion.

The remaining commentaries in this theme broaden the academy's field of vision by challenging whose stories, perspectives, and institutional practices are centered in marketing scholarship. Appau, Makkar, and Narh (2026) cleverly advocate for greater research from the African continent in their commentary, titled “The Interestingness Value of Including African Stories in Marketing and Public Policy Research.” A cohort of marketing researchers from Brazil, Arcuri et al. (2026), offer a different lens on inclusion in “Inclusion from the Borderlands: A Border-Thinking Praxis for Reorienting Marketing Research, Education, and Practice.” In “Beyond Representation: Inclusive Marketing as Market Access,” Pezzuti, Chen, and Mittelman (2026), two of whom are based in Chile, also argue that reclaiming inclusion as a marketing imperative requires looking beyond U.S. debates and adopting a non-U.S. lens. The final commentary in this cluster is a refreshing article by Ferguson (Lewis) et al. (2026), a diverse team of academic administrators who urge us to move beyond simple compliance in “Beyond Compliance: Inclusion as a Credibility Signal in Higher Education Markets.”

Under our second theme, the commentaries broaden the range of groups and conditions that merit attention related to inclusion. Two articles highlight subtle yet consequential forms of exclusion: sensory overload, in the commentary by Velasco et al. (2026), “Sensory Inclusion in the Marketplace: Addressing Overload as an Emerging Axis of Exclusion,” and neurodivergent ways of thinking, in Sirianni et al.’s (2026) “Neuroconvergence: An Untapped Strategy for Reducing Communication Mismatches and Enhancing Creativity in Frontline Encounters.” The impetus to broaden the range of groups that deserve additional consideration goes beyond human actors in Erbil, April, and Özbilgin’s (2026) discussion, “The Compassion–Consumption Paradox in Pet Care Markets: Rethinking Inclusion in Multispecies Consumer Policy,” and the aptly titled work by Wünderlich et al. (2026), “Beyond the Human: Animals as Facilitators and Subjects of Multispecies Inclusion.” Together, these articles push inclusion scholarship to account for the effects of human policies and actions on nonhuman companions and cohabitants. The final commentary in this category, Hampson, Deng, and Luo’s (2026) “Solo Aging and the Marketplace: Identity, Precarity, Power,” critically examines the intersection of two groups: older consumers and single consumers, and urges us not to overlook this emerging group.

The third theme continues to highlight how contextual and intersecting enablers and barriers across specific regions and subgroups shape inclusion and exclusion. Henry, Ghoshal, and Bradford (2026) examine colorism, a key determinant of who is included and who is not, in India and other parts of the world, in their commentary, “Assessing the Colonial Project: The Influence of Colorism in India.” In “Expanding and Enriching Marketing (and Management) Research, Education, and Practice Through Subsistence Marketplaces,” Viswanathan (2026) draws from his decades of holistic research on subsistence marketplaces to reinforce the global inequities underlying practices of inclusion and exclusion. Roberts et al. (2026) continue the discussion of the ongoing inequities impacting Indigenous communities in their work, “Equity, Benefits, and Mechanisms for Greater First Nations’ Economic and Policy Inclusion in Australian Society.” The next two articles reiterate that true gender inclusion remains elusive, both in the financial sphere of wealth accumulation, as clearly explained by Goode, Cotte, and Beese (2026) in “Busting Barriers to Improve Women's Wealth: A Commentary on Marketplace Financial Inclusion,” and in implicit brand communications, as discussed in Daskalopoulou and Gurrieri’s (2026) work, “Brand Misogyny: The Rise of Sexism and Anti-DEI Sentiment in the Marketplace.”

Stepping back to examine the conceptual foundations of inclusion debates, the next five articles question current approaches to marketplace inclusion. Broadening the systemic lens, Mende and Scott’s (2026) commentary, “The Prosperity Paradox: Economic Growth, Inclusion, Marketing Systems, and Institutional Trust,” emphasizes the crucial link between macroeconomic growth and inclusion as a strategic driver of market systems. In “Beyond the Sum of Our Parts: Emergent Intersectional Vulnerability Challenges Additive Models of Consumer Inclusion,” Saint Clair, Uduehi, and Hill (2026) challenge additive models of vulnerability and inclusion, while Scaraboto, Rojas-Gaviria, and Cardoso (2026) ask us to rethink prevailing notions of consumer competence in “Rethinking Consumer Competence for Genuine Inclusion.” Burgess, Kapitan, and Gray (2026) underscore the importance of intersectionality in “Why Marketing's Inclusion Crisis Persists: The Limits of Diversity Without Intersectionality,” arguing that true inclusion cannot be achieved without intersectional thinking. Goenka and Sen (2026) round out this set by reminding us not to lose sight of foundational principles in “The Ethical Foundation for Marketplace Inclusion.”

The fifth theme focuses on the frameworks, scorecards, and evaluative tools that can help scholars and practitioners assess inclusive market spaces and design more inclusive offerings. Wang and Lee (2026) provide a framework in their commentary, titled “Marketplace Inclusion Across the Consumer Journey: A Five-Stage Framework.” Kipnis et al. (2026) present a roadmap in their analysis, “Leveraging PESTEL: A Roadmap for Joint Action to Embed a Marketplace Inclusion Lens in Market Environment Analysis,” and Knight and Smith (2026) propose a scorecard in “Time to Refocus: Let's Start with a Country Marketplace Disability Inclusion Scorecard.” In their commentary, “The Limits of the Law: Reimagining Marketplace Accessibility,” Patrick et al. (2026) also focus on disability inclusion and the limitations of current policies. Two additional commentaries turn to segmentation: Kuppelwieser, Rosenbaum, and Cobelli (2026) challenge its fundamentals in “The Segmentation Paradox: When Marketing's Core Logic Becomes Moral Gatekeeping,” and Lee and Nordhielm (2026) explore ethical choice in their commentary, “Making the Right Inclusion Decision: Navigating the Tensions Between Inclusion and Efficiency, Harm Prevention, and Profitability.”

The final theme turns to digital spaces and emerging technologies, where new forms of exclusion are rapidly taking shape. Four commentaries focus specifically on artificial intelligence. Sridhar, Pattabhiramaiah, and Shaik (2026, p. 300) argue that it is imperative for inclusion to be “deliberately designed into AI-enabled education markets” in their commentary, titled “AI for All or for the Privileged Few? Inequality Risks in Global Education,” while Haenlein, Libai, and Abecassis-Moedas (2026) contend that older age inclusion needs to be part of the equation in their article, “Reclaiming Older Age Inclusion as a Marketing Imperative: The Case of AI.” Diaz Ruiz et al. (2026) focus on the potential threat of an increasingly common practice in “Advertising in AI Models: How the Zero-Click Internet Threatens Free Markets and Free Speech.” Zayer et al. (2026) dig deeper to provide actionable insights in “A Transformative Agenda for Digital Inclusion: Unpacking the Institutional Dynamics of Algorithmic Systems.” Examining digital spaces more broadly, Figueiredo et al. (2026) present “Reclaiming Digital Inclusion as Collective Market Practice.” In contrast, Tran et al. (2026) analyze a range of contexts in “Marketplace Inclusion as a Continuum: The Role of Spatial, Institutional, and Digital Conditions.” The final article in this category, by Van Doorn, Holthöwer, and Metting (2026), is titled “Bridging the Digital Divide: Why Inclusive Technology is a Market Necessity and Opportunity.”

Collectively, these essays comprise an energizing compilation, one that speaks to the breadth and urgency of marketplace inclusion scholarship. Thank you to our authors, our reviewers, the editors-in-chief at JPP&M, and the members of our advisory committee, including our esteemed colleague, Don Lehmann, who, sadly, is no longer with us but who graciously supported this issue. We also thank those who were unable to participate directly but expressed their support for the project. But the work cannot stop here. This issue is meant to be a springboard, a platform to demonstrate the power of our collective voices and the untapped potential in the perspectives of colleagues who have yet to be heard or who are not heard enough. More importantly, it is a reminder that inclusion is not a passing trend, nor a niche concern to be revisited only when politically convenient. It is a defining challenge for marketing scholarship and practice in the years ahead. Existing in environments where the very pillars of our discipline are continually contested, or where one constantly feels less than fully included, is challenging and exhausting. As readers digest these commentaries on marketing and public policy from our global author teams, we wish for everyone to pause, reflect, and even smile. We aimed to inspire, motivate, and include; we hope we have succeeded. Even more, we hope this issue prompts continued scholarship, deeper collaboration, and sustained action toward reclaiming marketplace inclusion as central to marketing's intellectual and societal mission. We chose the word “reclaiming” deliberately: Inclusion has always been foundational to what markets are supposed to do. Our task now is to hold that ground.