Jessica Heddenhausen

Research Student

Jessica Heddenhausen is affiliated with The Open Univesity Department of Strategy and Marketing.

You can email Jessica Heddenhausen directly; but for media enquiries pleases contact a member of The Open University's Media Relations team.

Biography

With roots in Germany, South Africa and the United States, Jessica began her higher education in the Netherlands and later transferred to Ireland. She holds first-class honours degrees in BA English & Marketing (2020) and MSc Strategic Marketing (2022) from Maynooth University, Ireland.

Working as a Research Assistant to her lecturers, Dr Olga Ryazanova (Maynooth University) and Dr Paola Zappa (University College London), she co-authored “Network gains from co-affiliation with multiple organizations: Insights from academic careers” (2022) for the EGOS (European Group for Organisational Studies) colloquium in Vienna.

Following this formative experience, Jessica received a PhD studentship from The Open University to pursue her passion for research in consumer behaviour and sustainability. Additionally, her interests include consumer psychology, strategic marketing, qualitative and mixed method research.

Current Research

Identity constructs in the contemporary consumer landscape

Since 2022, Jessica’s research on “Identity Constructs in the Contemporary Consumer Landscape” explores the role of relationships (to nature, people, products and services) in the sustainable farming sector.

Due to the climate crisis, changing support schemes and subsequent economic pressures, farmers face a new agricultural revolution – a time of liminality that challenges established narratives and calls for more collaboration.

This rapidly evolving agricultural landscape is shifting definitions of community and identity for farmer-consumers, whose homes are simultaneously sites of production.

Using identity theory as a lens to investigate these layers of the public and private farmer, Jessica’s research seeks to supplement the well-established consumer behaviour literature with fresh insights on identities in the contemporary context, which calls for more consideration of sustainable practises arising from increasingly stringent conditions.