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Purpose Social media and sustainability are changing Chinese consumers’ consumption behavior in notable ways. Few apparel industry sustainability efforts are enforced or well known in China. As China operates its own social media sites, it is necessary to study Chinese social media, rather than Western types, in order to understand its influence on Chinese consumer behavior with regard to sustainability. By extending the theory of reasoned action (TRA) and the prototype willingness model, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how Chinese consumers were taught their environmentally sustainable apparel (ESA) consumption behavior through social media, and also how the influence of peers affected their purchase intentions. Design/methodology/approach A total of 238 survey responses were collected and analyzed from a Chinese research firm in 2016. In accord with the study objectives, an exploratory factor analysis was first conducted, and then a two-step analysis of a structural equation model was employed for hypothesis testing. To test the significance of hypothesized mediated effects, a bootstrap procedure with 2,000 bootstrap samples from the original data was used to compute bias-corrected 95% CI for indirect effects. Moreover, hierarchical regressions were demonstrated to verify the unique contribution of social media influence. Findings The study findings support the previous literature that indicated positive attitudes toward environmentally sustainable purchasing behavior increased as Chinese consumers learned about social and environmental issues. Also, results of the analysis revealed that Chinese consumers’ engagement with social media and their peers were important social influences that were directly tied to increasing sustainable apparel purchase intentions. Originality/value By extending two grand theories of the prototype willingness model theory and the TRA, this study underlines a novel link between the influence of social media and ESA purchase intentions among Chinese consumers. Results are valuable in a global context as it is one of only a few studies to explore Chinese consumers’ purchase intentions of ESA through an exclusive social media platform – WeChat – in China.

Abstract:The relationship between the fashion retail industry's working environment and the high rate of employee turnover has been highlighted as one of the key concerns for negative organizational performance in both the short and long term. This relationship creates a need to investigate the ethical climate within fashion retail businesses, employees' attitudes toward their jobs, and employees' turnover intention, as these factors can influence organizations' performance including their likelihood of achieving the triple bottom lines of sustainability. Based on social exchange and human and social capital theories, this study investigated how employees' ethical climate and turnover intention are affected by both individual-and organizational-level factors, and their impact on the triple bottom lines of organizational sustainability performance. This study empirically tested a structural model based on the survey responses from 278 U.S. fashion retail employees. The findings show that an ethical climate can enhance employees' job attitude as well as all three dimensions of organizational sustainability performance-financial, social, and environmental. Creating an ethical climate in an organization can decrease employees' turnover intention, but also employees' attitudes towards their jobs lowers their turnover intention. The study's findings reveal that not only can employees' attitudes toward their jobs impact organizational sustainability performance, but creating an ethical working environment is another important way to improve organizational sustainability performance.

To support businesses' efforts to improve sustainability performance, the role of employees should not be neglected, as organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) can improve the effectiveness and flexibility of a business as a whole. Given the potential impact of OCB on organizations' performance, this study investigated how the role of employees' OCB can help to achieve the triple bottom line of sustainability-financial, social and environmental performance. Using U.S. fashion retail employees as the sampling framework, a total of 278 datasets were used to test the hypothesized relationship. The results showed that the ethical climate of an organization indeed positively affects employees' OCB, consistent with previous studies in non-fashion retail organizations. Regardless of the size of the organization, the role of employees on the organization's overall sustainability performance was found to be highly important.These findings suggest that businesses should consider ethical climate to enhance sustainability through employees' OCB.

Using a framework from the heuristic‐systematic model and the value‐belief‐norm (VBN) theory, this study tests consumers’ systematic conjunction of sustainability values, beliefs and practices, and examines the heuristic influence of sustainability stewardship on the consumers’ VBN framework. In this study, sustainability stewardship within the textile and apparel industry refers to approaches that can facilitate the corporate social responsible (CSR) drive and eco‐labels/indices in corporate sustainability practices. Data from 239 US college students were analyzed using a structural equation modeling method. The findings confirmed that only the CSR drive is significant as heuristic sustainability stewardship in facilitating the consumer's systematic process in the VBN framework, while eco‐labels/indices do not moderate consumers’ sustainable practices. In particular, the current CSR drives in the textile and apparel industry strengthen consumers’ values in the altruistic, self‐enhancement and biospheric dimensions, and, further, lead to the sustainability practices of eco‐citizenship, green consumption and green product purchasing, through the mediation of proenvironmental belief. Comprehending these dynamics can empower marketers and researchers to devise pertinent ideas and practical applications of sustainability stewardship to academia and to the textiles and apparel industry.

Despite fashion consumers' desire to protect the environment and behave in a socially responsible manner, the reality of the environment within the fashion retail industry is far from sustainable, as evidenced by several infamous scandals that continue to afflict fashion businesses. Though corporate sustainability is gaining traction with both consumers and businesses, the USA and China may exist in different institutional contexts in regard to corporate sustainability. Consequently, this study was designed to understand the differences in employees' perceptions toward corporate sustainability, and how employees in fashion retail businesses engage in organizational citizenship behaviour in the USA and China. By using a sample of 615 fashion retail employees from the USA and China, this study conducted Multivariate Analysis of Variance and multiple linear regression analyses to determine the differences between these two countries and their demographic characteristics. The study found that employees in China revealed a greater preference for transparency in production and operation than did US employees. The importance of corporate sustainability yielded quite opposite results according to age and gender differences. Overall, this study found that both US and Chinese employees perceived sustainability to be highly important for corporations to achieve, but only US employees were engaged in organizational citizenship behaviour with the influence of their MRCS. Hence, this study's findings provide better insight for global fashion retail businesses in that they may have to exercise different strategies to achieve corporate sustainability in different countries, as the employees might have different levels of moral expectations based on their country of employment.

Few studies have been conducted to explore the role of the institutional environment on the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and operational performance in Korea's manufacturing industry. Therefore, this study investigates the moderating effects of four institutional uncertainties-law enforcement, regulatory uncertainty, market turbulence and competition intensity-on the relationship between CSR and operational performance. Empirical survey data from 209 Korean manufacturers was collected online and then analyzed through moderated multiple regression analyses. The results show that CSR can significantly affect operational performance, positively moderated by law enforcement and competition intensity, but not by regulatory uncertainty and market turbulence. These results advise that the different institutional environments in which CSR is implemented are particularly important to consider for optimal business operations.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how sensory, cognitive, affective experiences affect relational brand experience in regards to different channels (i.e. online vs store), how relational brand experience influences brand awareness and brand loyalty. Design/methodology/approach – By employing self-administered questionnaires, the data on 393 respondents were collected from students enrolled at a major southwestern university in the USA. The moderation regression analysis was conducted to test the hypotheses and propositions. Findings – The study supports most of the hypotheses and propositions regarding the impacts of brand experiences on brand resonance in multi-channel retailing. The moderating effects of channel type are founded in relationships between sensory experience, affective experience and relational experience. Further, relational experience impacts on brand awareness and loyalty in any channel. Research limitations/implications – Given the exploratory nature of this approach, there are methodological limitations in generalizing research findings. However, the study solidifies the branding theory by understanding the multi-dimensional brand experience, and moderating effects of channel type enrich brand experience managements in the multi-channel retailing for fashion brands. Practical implications – This study implies that relational experience through sensory, affective and cognitive brand experiences in multiple-channel setting has a huge business potential to concrete consumer and brand value. Originality/value – This study substantiates the robust effects of brand experiences on brand resonance and the causal structure of multi-dimensional aspects of brand experiences in conjunction with the moderating effect of channel type.