PhD : From Intentions to Impact - AI Sustainable Consumer Choice

We are offering a PhD position at the intersection of Consumer Behavior, Sustainability, and Artificial Intelligence. You will contribute to interdisciplinary research on how emerging technologies can support more sustainable consumer behavior and decision‑making. The position is embedded in two international research communities, offering a rich and collaborative research environment. You will engage in research with both strong scientific and societal relevance.

PhD Candidate:
From Good Intentions to Real Impact – Can AI Support Sustainable Consumer Choices?

• Our goal
  : to investigate whether conversational AI can help consumers make choices that better align with their long‑term environmental goals. More broadly, you will explore how digital technologies can support self‑regulation, decision‑making, and sustainable behavior.
• Your colleagues
  : you will be jointly embedded in the Department of Marketing & Supply Chain Management (MSCM) at the School of Business and Economics and the Maastricht Sustainability Institute (MSI), with a primary affiliation in MSCM and an active role in MSI's research community.

MSCM is a vibrant and international group of researchers dedicated to high‑quality research and education with a strong commitment to societal impact. Research within MSCM spans topics such as consumer behavior, digital marketing, service innovation, supply chain management, data analytics, and sustainable business.

MSI is an inter and trans‑disciplinary institute focused on sustainability challenges and societal transitions. MSI researchers operate within the complexity of the social‑environmental‑economic systems in which sustainability challenges exist and aim to combine academic excellence with real‑world relevance. MSI research addresses sustainability issues in a broad sense in food systems, cities and circular economy from different disciplines to develop innovative solutions.

This dual embedding reflects the interdisciplinary nature of the project and ensures that the PhD candidate is fully integrated into both research environments. Together, MSCM and MSI provide a unique interdisciplinary environment for studying how emerging technologies can contribute to more sustainable consumer behavior.

You will be supervised by Dr. Kelly Geyskens (MSCM) and Dr. Joana Wensing (MSI).
You will work closely with your supervisors as part of a collaborative research team while gradually developing into an independent researcher. The position combines conceptual development, qualitative research, experimental design, data collection, and advanced data analysis. Through your involvement in both MSCM and MSI, you will benefit from complementary expertise in consumer behavior and sustainability.

This PhD project addresses one of the key challenges in sustainability research: many consumers want to act sustainably but often struggle to turn these intentions into everyday behavior. At the same time, conversational AI tools are becoming part of daily life and increasingly influence how people search for information, make decisions, and solve problems.

In this project, you will investigate whether conversational AI can help consumers make choices that better align with their long‑term environmental goals. More broadly, you will explore how digital technologies can support self‑regulation, decision‑making, and sustainable behavior.

The project combines insights from consumer behavior, sustainability, psychology, and human‑technology interaction. Using a combination of literature reviews, qualitative research, and behavioral experiments, you will contribute to a rapidly growing research area with both scientific and societal relevance.

• Develop research questions and hypotheses based on existing scientific literature.
• Design and conduct a multi‑method research program combining literature reviews, qualitative research, and behavioral experiments.
• Collect, manage, and analyze qualitative and quantitative data.
• Ensure the transparency and reproducibility of research processes and analyses.
• Write research papers for submission to international academic journals.
• Present your work at international…