The increasing public awareness and sense of social responsibility related to environmental issues have led the textile industry to manufacture products with improved environmental profiles. This article evaluates processes used to produce cotton, wool, nylon, polyester, rayon, lyocell (Tencel®), and leather, and their potential environmental impacts using selected criteria. An analysis of the measures the textile industry has taken to reduce the adverse environmental impacts is provided. Finally, the textile industry's and consumers' responsibilities in moving toward the production of environmentally sound textile products are discussed. The assessment of the environmental impact of a product is a complex issue, and solutions cannot be achieved without action by the government, industry, and the consumers.

PurposeAs an effort to identify the underlying determinants of compulsive buying, this study seeks to examine fashion orientation, a fashion‐related variable, as a direct antecedent of compulsive buying and as an indirect antecedent of compulsive buying through credit card use.Design/methodology/approachUsing a convenient sampling method, women aged over 20 years living in the Seoul metropolitan area were selected as the sample. Out of 380 distributed, 267 useful questionnaires were returned. Confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis were conducted using structural equation modeling.FindingsThe results of this study showed that fashion interest significantly influenced compulsive buying directly and also indirectly by influencing credit card use.Originality/valueThis study has significance in terms of being the first one to explore the relationship between fashion orientation variables and compulsive buying, offering a new perspective on compulsive buying.

In this essay, Leigh Hall and Leslie Burns use theories of identity to understand mentoring relationships between faculty members and doctoral students who are being prepared as educational researchers. They suggest that becoming a professional researcher requires students to negotiate new identities and reconceptualize themselves both as people and professionals in addition to learning specific skills; however, the success or marginalization that students experience may depend on the extent to which they attempt to enact identities that are valued by their mentors. For this reason, Hall and Burns argue that faculty mentors must learn about and consider identity formation in order to successfully socialize more diverse groups of researchers, and they believe that formal curriculum designs can be used more intentionally to help students and faculty understand the roles identity plays in professional development and to make doctoral education more equitable.

The moderating role of hedonic shopping value in conjunction with gender differences in apparel shopping satisfaction was investigated. Involvement, variety seeking, and physical environment of stores were selected as antecedents of shopping experience satisfaction. Respondents were 746 Korean undergraduate university students. To test the hypothesized structural model, structural equation modeling was utilized. The structural model for female subjects confirmed the existence of the mediating role of hedonic shopping value in shopping satisfaction, whereas the model for male respondents did not. For the female group, involvement and variety seeking influenced shopping experience satisfaction directly through hedonic shopping value. For the male group, hedonic shopping value did not play a role as an intervening variable. Male respondents’ levels of hedonic shopping value may have been too low to serve as an intervening determinant. This result implies that male respondents may possess greater utilitarian constructs for apparel shopping satisfaction rather than hedonic constructs.

Purpose -This study examines the impacts of fashion innovativeness and materialism on young Korean consumers' attitudes toward online purchasing of foreign fashion goods across national borders through local e-commerce enablers and the moderating effect of internet innovativeness on these impacts. Design/methodology/approach -The data used in this study were gathered by surveying female university students in Seoul, Korea, using convenience sampling, and 222 questionnaires were used in the statistical analysis. In analyzing data, correlation analysis, hierarchical regression, and simple slope analysis were conducted. Findings -The results showed that fashion innovativeness and materialism are positively related to the attitude toward purchasing foreign fashion goods online across national borders, and that internet innovativeness exercises significant moderating effects on the relationships. Originality/value -Past research found positive direct impacts of internet innovativeness on internet shopping, but no study has explored the interaction effects between internet innovativeness and other variables directly influencing online purchasing attitudes toward foreign fashion goods. Practical implications are discussed, and suggestions for future research are made.

The international marketing of American goods and services is of increasing importance to the United States economy (Husted, Varble, & Lowry, 1992). In order to be successful in the global market, an understanding is necessary regarding the extent to which consumers from different nations evaluate goods and services. Based on the results of numerous studies, models have been developed to serve as frameworks for the explanation as well as prediction of the complexities of consumer behavior. One such model is the Engel, Kollat, and Miniard (EKM) model of consumer decision-making (Engel, Blackwell, & Miniard, 1995). The EKM model includes four stages of consumer decisionmaking: (1) information input, (2) information processing, (3) the decision process, and (4) variables influencing the decision process; the model "is based on learning processes, with emphasis upon the information search process" (Zaltman & Wallendorf, 1979, p. 541).Prior to the information input stage, the individual recognizes a need that may be met through the purchase process. Once the need is recognized, the individual selects information about the product through either an internal search process including individual memory and/or through an external search process if additional information is required. "Information processing refers to the process by which a stimulus is received, interpreted, stored in memory, and later retrieved" (Engel, et al., 1995, p. 472). The information processing stage follows five steps: the consumer's exposure to, attention to, comprehension of, acceptance of, and, finally, retention of information. The decision process stage follows six steps: need recognition, search for information, pre-purchase alternative evaluation, purchase, consumption, and post-purchase alternative evaluation.The variables influencing the decision process consist of three categories: environmental influences, individual differences, and psychological processes. Environmental influences include culture, social class, personal influences, family, and situation. Individual differences consist of consumer resources, motivation and involvement, knowledge, attitudes, personality, values, and lifestyle. Psychological processes include information processing, learning, and attitude and behavior change. The present study examined the relation- AbstractTaiwanese and United States college women were compared regarding the importance they placed on the evaluative criteria they used when purchasing a specific clothing item for themselves. One hundred nineteen Taiwanese and 84 United States college women completed self-administered questionnaires. Seven-point scales were used to measure the importance of 12 clothing evaluative criteria: fabric, comfort, size/fit, quality, location of manufacturer, color, how pleasing it was to others, brand name, appropriateness for campus wear, price, style, and coordination with other clothing. The findings indicated that the importance placed on clothing evaluative criteria was very similar between the two groups. In ...

The objectives of this study were to investigate the effect of consumer socialization on attitudes toward clothing and shopping and means of acquiring clothing and to investigate the effects of consumer socialization and selected clothing and shopping attitudes on clothing satisfaction. Subjects were 70 mother/daughter pairs who completed parallel questionnaires. Results indicated similarities between mother and daughter pairs for means of clothing acquisition and for overall clothing satisfaction. For both mothers and daughters high fashion involvement and high shopping enjoyment contributed to overall clothing satisfaction. Results are discussed in terms of consumer socialization and satisfaction theories.

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