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The purpose of this research is to gain insight into collectivist consumers' perception of purchasing organic cotton apparel. An extended TRA model was employed to identify major factors that influence consumers' purchase decisions. Data were collected through a Web-based survey of 200 female South Korean residents older than 18 years of age. The results of SEM showed that perceived benefits, importance of individual expression through dressing well, performance risk, financial risk and subjective norm significantly influenced attitude toward purchasing organic cotton apparel products. In addition, financial risk, attitude, and subjective norm had significant effects on consumers' purchase intention. It was revealed that subjective norm played a critical role in the purchase process: subjective norm was one of the strongest antecedents of attitude among the six variables under examination and exerted a similar influence on purchase intention as attitude. Based on the findings, practical implications for organic cotton marketers and suggestions for future research are proposed.

A recent report from Textile Exchange (2017) has revealed a growth in the organic market as well as an increased consumer demand for organic products. In 2016, there was a 4% increase in U.S. production of organic cotton with a rising number of farmers growing this crop as many companies are showing commitments to organic cotton and supporting these farmers. Additionally, organic sales in the non-food category which includes apparel and textile products have increased by 8.8% from the previous year. Despite the growing demand in the market, consumers generally have poor understanding about environmental or social matters associated with apparel and textile products (Ha-Brookshire and Norum 2011a; Han and Han 2017). Ha-Brookshire and Norum 2011a had mentioned the lack of opportunities to learn about sustainability

Abstract:The purpose of this research was to examine consumers from distinct cultural groups and identify similarities and differences in their green purchase behaviors. The sample consisted of consumers from the U.S.A. and South Korea and the theory of planned behavior was used as a theoretical framework to test the influence of diverse constructs on consumers' purchase intentions toward organic cotton apparel. For both countries, perceived behavioral control (PBC) and descriptive norms were strong predictors of purchase intentions and injunctive norms strongly influenced attitude formation. However, the study also found different results between the two groups. For example, while attitude was the strongest predictor of purchase intentions in the U.S.A. group (strength of influence on intentions: attitude > descriptive norms > PBC > injunctive norms), it had an insignificant effect in the South Korea group. For the South Korea group descriptive norms and PBC had strongest effects on consumers purchase intentions (strength of influence on intentions: descriptive norms = PBC > injunctive norms > attitude). South Koreans were more affected by the social pressure: their purchase intentions were strongly influenced by both injunctive norms and descriptive norms in contrast to the findings from American consumers. Injunctive norms were an insignificant predictor of purchase intentions in the U.S.A. group. This result is consistent with previous research that suggest conformity is a crucial factor for people belonging to a collectivistic culture. Exposure of others' purchasing behavior is particularly important in motivating consumers' buying in collectivistic culture. Marketers of organic cotton apparel may consider using diverse formats of media to display consumers' ethical buying behaviors or creating product design or packaging that can directly reveal the ethical features of the product to display greater exposure in the market.

Explaining socially responsible consumer behavior: A meta-analytic review of theory of planned behavior Tae-Im Han, Leslie Stoel The Ohio State University, USA Keywords: meta-analysis, theory of planned behavior, socially responsible consumers Introduction Despite retailer and consumer interest in ethical consumerism, prior research provides limited knowledge about purchase behaviors of socially responsible consumers. The term, socially responsible consumer has been conceptualized rather broadly and its definition varies across studies. The discrepancy in the use of the term and mixed results in previous research accordingly provide narrow understanding on this topic. The purpose of the study is to systematically review previous studies of socially responsible consumer behavior (SRCB) that apply the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to examine the predictive validity of the model and to identify major determinants of consumers' ethical purchase behaviors. It is among the first to quantitatively aggregate and compare the results from SRCB studies involving a broad range of product types and ethical issues. Literature Review Theory of planned behavior (TPB): Behavioral intention is a function of the following three factors: attitude toward performing the behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control (PBC) (Ajzen, 1991). TPB has been widely applied by studies in the psychosocial domain (McEachern et al., 2007). In particular, the theory has contributed to the enhancement of the ability to predict a person's intention to perform socially responsible behavior in various settings. Socially Responsible Consumers: Roberts (1993) described a socially responsible consumer as "one who purchases products and services perceived to have a positive (or less negative) influence on the environment or who patronizes businesses that attempt to affect related positive social change" (p. 140). Methods Meta-analysis is conducted to address the following research questions: 1. Which TPB components have stronger relationship with behavioral intention? 2. Are there any moderators that influence the relationships between TPB components? Studies for inclusion were limited to those that contain information on consumers' purchase behavior toward products associated with 2 types of social issues (i.e., environmental protection and support for human rights) within the domain of apparel, food, and hotel/tourism industries. A total of 30 studies reporting results of 33 independent data sets met the selection criteria needed for the analysis. Results 1) The relative strength of relationship between TPB components: Purchase intention correlated most strongly with attitude ( = .53, p<.001). Subjective norms ( =.50, p<.001) also had a strong association with purchase intention and the strength of association was much stronger than that of the PBC-purchase intention relationship ( = .39, p<.001). The homogeneity statistics indicated a large variation in the correlations reported in the data sets which encouraged a search for potential ...

The purpose of this study was to examine green practices implemented among fashion manufacturers and identify factors that drive the adoption of those practices, specifically focusing on a company’s cultural innovativeness and the perceived benefits of green innovations. An online survey was created containing both open-ended and multiple-choice questions using Likert scales. Data were gathered from 29 fashion manufacturers that were identified by the Google search engine and then approached. Qualitative data were analyzed to obtain insights into fashion manufacturers’ green practices and a cluster analysis was conducted to categorize companies into distinct groups based on their level of green product innovations and green process innovations. Our findings suggest that the adoption of green practices was related to a company’s internal characteristics such as cultural innovativeness and social responsibility perceptions. Perceived benefits from green practices were not a sufficient motivator for adopting those practices. It is important to examine manufacturers’ perceptions of becoming more involved in green practices because they have great potential to make a positive impact on the mainstream industry and appeal to a wider market audience.

A large numbers of studies have supported the crucial role of brand love in consumer–brand relationships; however, research that examines fashion brand love and its relationship with cognitive aspects and self-concept congruency remains limited. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to identify important factors that are associated with fashion brand love. A questionnaire in which participants provided self-reported responses was created to measure the constructs and structural equation modeling (SEM) and independent sample t-tests were conducted to test the hypothesized relationships. Our results indicated that consumers who know more about fashion brands are more likely to have stronger emotional attachment to their favorite fashion brand and brand love, in turn, has a significant effect on performing brand-loyal behaviors. Furthermore, our results demonstrated that fashion brand love is strongly associated with actual and ideal self-congruity. These findings suggest that it is important for fashion brands to focus on developing affective relationships with consumers to gain brand loyalty and one way to achieve this goal is to enhance brand awareness or knowledge among consumers. Fashion brands also need to invest in activities that aim to deliver a brand image congruent with actual and ideal self-concepts of the target market.