The present study applies asymmetric analysis and models complex antecedent conditions to identify shoppers with high purchase intentions to sustainable fashion products’ (SFPs) and high eWOM intention. The fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) method was used to assess the cause-and effect process. The examination was based on information process, and decision making of consumers in two countries (China and Korea) was found to vary by nationality. Specifically, consumers in the two countries provided different responses on sustainable fashion change configuration, suggesting differences in the characteristics of sustainable and non-sustainable fashion consumers and sustainable fashion intentions. The results show that various casual recipes on sustainable fashion change the configuration and sustainable fashion intention on corners 1 and 4. Both Chinese and Korean consumers do not have several unique demographic and fashion expenditure configurations that characterize consumers with high intention to buy and eWOM intention favorable toward sustainable fashion. In the Chinese consumers’ data, computing with words (CWW) showed that young•married•low-income•low-education•low-fashionexpenditure cases (consumers) were lower on negation purchase and eWOM intentions (i.e., an accurate screening configuration identifying consumers high io non-sustainable fashion intentions). The results also help identify consumer characteristics of sustainable fashion consumers and non-sustainable fashion consumers. Specifically, the results of the fsQCA suggest dissimilar confirmation to achieve purchase intention and eWOM intention of sustainable fashion and provide meaningful academic and managerial implications. The results of the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis also support and clarify the role of the theory of information process and the theory of reasoned action towards sustainable fashion.

Introduction The fashion business is known as one of the major industries that is suffering from rising concerns about the consumption of its product, which led to a reorganization of the fashion supply chain to become more sustainable three decades ago. The interest in the concept of sustainability and demand for sustainable marketing activities is gradually growing in the fashion industry due to the negative image and press it receives. Within the luxury fashion segment, the three main themes that are recognized to contribute to sustainability are exclusivity, craftmanship and limited production. However, luxury brands are increasingly shifting their attention and commitment towards environmental and social issues to be incorporated in the concept of sustainability. Yet, the majority of consumers has little understanding or misunderstands the concept of sustainable fashion and marketing, which leads to a gap between attitudes towards sustainability and actual behavior. As a result, fashion brands are trying to leverage their brand by making sustainability a key marketing strategy to raise awareness about social, environmental, economic and cultural issues. Extant research has not explored this recent trend to understand how consumers evaluate fashion brands with a sustainable marketing communication, especially in the context of luxury brands. This study investigates how luxury and mass fashion brands can utilize sustainable marketing contents in social media communication to reach their target group and enhance their equity with sustainability associations. Theoretical Development Associative network models of memory have served as a fundamental framework for a wide range of studies related to the formation and transfer of associations. According to associative network theory, brand knowledge is represented in form of an associative network of memory nodes connected to each other. Nodes are activated when cues, such as advertising, are presented. Mere exposure to cues was shown to be sufficient to active associations and facilitate association transfer. While brands are continuously attempting to make use of associative power to leverage brand equity, extant research has provided compelling reasons to accept that association transfer can also result in brand dilution when a retrieval of conflicting or negative associations occurs. Especially in the context of luxury brands consisting of very unique associations and being different from mass brands in many regards, managing the brand’s associative network is a crucial task in order to send the right signals to consumers and maintain exclusivity. This study investigates how social media communication of different sustainability dimensions affects brand attitude and how it ultimately impacts behavioral outcomes in an attempt to build brand equity for mass and luxury fashion brands. Method and Data The hypotheses are tested with 273 respondents who participated in an online experiment. They were first asked to state their involvement with the category fashion. Subsequently, subjects were presented with a brand post either for the mass or luxury brand including claims related to one of the four sustainability dimensions or no claims for the control group respectively. The experiment consisted of a 2 (brand: mass or luxury) x 5 (sustainability dimensions: none, cultural, economic, environmental, social) factorial design. The measures that followed included attitudinal as well as behavioral constructs related to the brand, sustainability as well as social media use. Analysis of covariance is applied to test for main effects and interaction effects. Summary of Findings This study provides evidence that social media communication of a sustainable brand affects the purchase intention of consumers. The findings indicate a significant difference between the mass and the luxury brand used for this study. The mass brand exhibits the potential to leverage associations with cultural, economic, and environmental sustainability. However, the results only reveal a marginally significant higher purchase intention when cultural sustainability is communicated compared to when the brand does not provide any sustainable associations. In contrast, the luxury brand suffers from significant brand dilution across all four sustainability dimensions resulting in a decline in purchase intention. Key Contributions The findings reveal that sustainability communication exerts a diverging influence depending on the type of brand that is involved. This study suggests that mass brands are able to benefit from sustainability communication in an attempt to leverage brand equity. However, for a luxury brand this type of associations rather presents a liability that might dilute the brand. The findings of this study provide important insights for brand managers. Since mass brands are currently increasing efforts into sustainable communication in the fashion industry, the results suggest that this might be a promising investment. However, luxury brands are advised to carefully manage the communication of salient content related to sustainability as it might harm the invaluable and unique associations inherent in a luxury brand.

In recent years brands have come under the spotlight for delivering unique and authentic brand experiences. Consumers find themselves looking for brands that add experiential value to their daily life, from a sensory, behavioral, intellectual and relational perspective (Brakus et al., 2009). Moreover, there is a growing demand for brands that are able to deliver their brand promise authentically (Morhart et al., 2015; Schallehn et al., 2014). On this background, our research was conducted in order to examine the role of brand experience and brand authenticity in generating brand love. In addressing this issue, the present study attempts to perform a test on research hypotheses by empirically validating the proposed conceptual model in a cross-country context (Japan and Portugal) for the brands Apple and Samsung. Additionally, it analyses the moderating effect of self-authenticity in relation to brand experience and brand authenticity. Data collection was done using a structured questionnaire to final consumers, who are owners of Apple and Samsung devices. A total of 574 valid questionnaires were collected regarding Apple brand (Japan = 300; Portugal = 274). Following the testing of the structural equation model, results demonstrate the correlation between brand authenticity and brand experience and show that the greater the self-authenticity, the higher is the effect of brand authenticity on brand love. It is worth noting however that the direct and moderating effects are different for Apple and Samsung in Japan and Portugal. This accounts for the cultural differences in how consumers perceive the experiential and authentic brand value propositions and how they relate emotionally to brands. Our study also provides important managerial implications by helping brand managers to understand how to drive passionate and intense feelings towards brands and to target consumers who are looking for compelling, meaningful and authentic brand experiences.

Introduction User-generated online reviews have become an essential part of consumer decisionmaking process (Mayzlin, Dover, & Chevalier, 2014) affecting product attitudes (Schlosser, 2005), purchase intentions (Ba & Pavlou, 2002), sales (Babić Rosario, Sotgiu, De Vlack, & Bijmolt, 2016), as well as price and quantity of transactions (Berger, Sorensen, & Rasmussen, 2010). For instance, 58% of consumers prefer sites with peer reviews, and nearly all consumers (98%) reported reading peer review before making purchases online (eMarketer, 2010). Given the reach and influence of user-generated content (UGC), it is unsurprising that companies offer numerous incentives such as coupons, rebates, free samples, and monetary payments to encourage user-generated online reviews. In 2012, Tesco, a British multinational grocery and general merchandise retailer, ran a “Share & Earn” scheme where the retailer gave loyalty points to Facebook fans sharing products. Since such reviewers are more like friends than random strangers, how does the review source and incentives affect reviewer trustworthiness and purchase intentions? Would these effects differ across individualistic and collectivistic cultures? Our research examines the cross-cultural differences in the effects of review source and incentives on reviewer trustworthiness and purchase intentions between Americans and Taiwanese. Review Source and Trustworthiness Extant research has shown that reviews from friends are usually more persuasive than reviews from strangers (Huang, Zhang, Liu, & Liang, 2014). Dubois et al. (2016) revealed that high levels of interpersonal closeness increased the negativity of reviews shared, whereas low levels of interpersonal closeness increased the positivity of reviews shared. Correspondingly, individuals tend to perceive friendly review sources as being more trustworthy and honest (Ben-Ner & Halldorsson, 2010). The circulation for UGC online reviews on social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram could also make the review source appear like a friend. Since user-generated online reviews appear on the user’s own profile page as well as newsfeeds of each friend connected to that user (Chatterjee, 2011), individuals could easily perceive review sources as friendly and trustworthy. Given that online trust often increases purchase intention (Bart, Shankar, Urban, & Sultan, 2005), we posit that reviews from friends increase reviewer trustworthiness, which, in turn, increase purchase intentions. Incentives While online reviews from friends could be deemed as more trustworthy, incentives could muddy the waters. Sterling (2013) showed that over 40% of consumers in a survey reported some level of doubt in the credibility of UGC, fueled by reports of firms posting “fake” positive reviews, deleting negative reviews, or manipulating consumers into making positive statements that might not be a true representation of their options (Mayzlin et al., 2014). Given the level of distrust, the Federal Trade Commission sent out more than 90 letters reminding influencers and marketers that they required to clearly and conspicuously disclose their relationships with brands when promoting or endorsing products on social media (FTC, 2017). Relatedly, in 2012, the UK Advertising Standards Authority ruled that travel website TripAdvisor must cease claiming that it offers “honest, real, or trusted” reviews from “real travelers” since they are unable to assure consumers that all review content was genuine. Even when incentives are disclosed, incentivized reviews are often viewed with suspicion and are discounted as a means of correcting for presumed reviewer bias, even if the reviewer was not biased by the incentive (Du Plessis, Stephen, Bart, & Gonclaves, 2016). Taken together, we argue that incentivized reviews will decrease reviewer trustworthiness, and consequently, purchase intentions. Cultural Differences Existing work on the effects of review source and incentives have, at least implicitly, assumed that its effects hold globally and failed to consider individual or cultural moderating factors. In particular, individualistic and collectivistic cultures differ in their perceptions of trust violations: collectivists tend to become less trusting after experiencing a violation from in-group rather than out-group members; individualists’ trust levels are less affected by violations from in-group members (Fulmer, Gelfand, 2010; van Hoorn, 2015). In the context of our research, incentivized reviews could be regarded as trust violation, where reviewers no longer act altruistically to provide honest reviews. Thus, we posit that incentives could moderate the effects that reviews from friends have on perceived trustworthiness, and consequently, purchase intention in collective cultures (i.e. Taiwanese participants). In contrast, we expect to replicate the results of previous research where reviews from friends increases reviewer trustworthiness and purchase intentions; while incentivized reviews decreases reviewer trustworthiness and purchase intentions. Formally, we hypothesize that: Hypothesis 1a (H1a): Reviews from friends will be considered as more trustworthy than review from strangers amongst American participants. Hypothesis 1b (H1b): American participants will be more likely to purchase products reviewed by friends than strangers. Hypothesis 2a (H2a): Amongst American participants, reviewers providing incentivized reviews will be perceived as less trustworthy than reviewers providing non-incentivized reviews. Hypothesis 2b (H2b): American participants will be less likely to purchase products from incentivized reviews than non-incentivized reviews. Hypothesis 3a (H3a): Amongst Taiwanese participants, when reviews are not incentivized, reviews from friends will be considered more trustworthy than reviews from strangers. The effect will be attenuated when reviews are incentivized. Hypothesis 3b (H3b): Taiwanese participants will be more willing to purchase products reviewed by friends than strangers when the reviews are not incentivized. The effect will be attenuated when reviews are incentivized. Method Participants and Design Three hundred and sixteen participants (50% female, 18-85 years old) were recruited on Qualtrics for nominal payment. Half of the participants were American and completed the survey in English while the rest were Taiwanese and completed the survey in Mandarin. A 2 (review source: stranger vs. friend) x 2 (incentive: no incentive vs. incentivized review) x 2 (nationality: USA vs. Taiwan) mixed design was adopted with source and incentive manipulated within-subject and nationality manipulated between-subjects. Procedure All participants were instructed to assume that they were travelling to London, and was searching for a hotel to stay for a couple of days. They were then presented with four hotel reviews. Both source and incentive were manipulated within-subjects. Source of the reviews was either a friend or a stranger. Reviews were either not incentivized or incentivized where the reviewer was given discount on their stay for leaving a review. To prevent order effects, the reviews were presented in random order. All reviews were 4 out 5 stars reviews, were generally positive, and were dated at a similar time. Measures After every review, participants indicated purchase intention on two items (e.g. “After reading this review, I feel like booking this hotel.”; “If there is a chance, I will book this hotel.”) on a 7-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree)(Kim, Park, & Lee, 2013). Participants also rated how much they trusted the reviewer on a 7-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree) on three items (e.g. “I trust this reviewer to choose a hotel for me.”; “I have confidence in this reviewer.”; “I believe this reviewer is being honest.”) (Smith, Menon, & Sivakumar, 2005). Individualism/collectivism as well as uncertainty avoidance was assessed using a 3-item measure (e.g. “Individuals should stick with the group even through difficulties.”; “It’s important to closely follow instruction and procedures.”) (Yoo, Donthu, & Lenartowicz, 2011) with a 7-point Likert scale (1= strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree) Results Outliers were removed using Stem and Leaf plots, leaving 295 participants, 148 Taiwanese participants and 149 American participants (50% female, 18 to 85 years old). Contrary to previous research (Hofstede Insights, 2018), American participants (M = 6.07, SD = 0.96) scored significantly higher on the uncertainty avoidance scale than their Taiwanese counterparts (M = 5.56, SD = 1.01). In addition, American participants (M = 5.00, SD = 1.35) did not score significantly higher on the individualism/collectivism scale than their Taiwanese counterparts (M = 5.08, SD = 1.23). As predicted in Hypothesis 1a, a 2 (review source: stranger vs. friend) x 2 (incentive: no incentive vs. incentivized review) on reviewer trustworthiness revealed a significant main effect of review source, F(1, 146) = 25.34, p =.00, where friends (M = 5.34, SD = 1.19) were significantly more trustworthy than strangers (M = 4.97, SD =1.24) amongst USA participants. In line with H2a, there was also a significant main effect of incentive, where non-incentivized reviews (M = 5.24, SD = 1.21) were considered more trustworthy than incentivized reviews (M = 5.07, SD = 1.22), F(1,146)=6.43, p =.01. There was no significant interaction effect, F <1. Amongst the Taiwanese participants, a 2 (review source: stranger vs. friend) x 2 (incentive: no incentive vs. incentivized review) on reviewer trustworthiness revealed a significant main effect of review source, F(1, 147) = 13.02, p =.00, and incentive, F(1,147)=6.43, p =.01, qualified by the predicted interaction, F(1,147)=3.77, p =.05. Consistent with our predictions (H3a), when reviews were not incentivized, friends (M = 5.41, SD = 1.08) were significantly more trustworthy than strangers (M = 5.15, SD = 1.10), F(1,147)=15.63, p=.00. However, when reviewers were incentivized, friends (M = 5.20, SD = 1.05) were just as trustworthy as strangers (M = 5.09, SD = 1.15, F(1,147) = 1.85, p =.18. As predicted (H1b), amongst USA participants, a 2 (review source: stranger vs. friend) x 2 (incentive: no incentive vs. incentivized review) on purchase intention revealed a significant main effect of review source, F(1, 146) = 4.46, p =.04, where reviews from friends (M = 5.40, SD = 1.20) elicited higher purchase intentions than reviews from strangers (M = 5.27, SD =1.20). Contrary to Hypothesis 2b, there was no main effect of incentive, F(1,146) = 1.34, p =.25, nor interaction, F<1. Amongst Taiwanese participants, a 2 (review source: stranger vs. friend) x 2 (incentive: no incentive vs. incentivized review) on purchase intention revealed a significant main effect of incentive where non-incentivized reviews (M = 5.49, SD = 0.94) elicited greater purchase intentions than incentivized reviews (M = 5.39, SD = 0.98), F(1,147) =3.74, p=.06. There was no main effect of source, F(1,147)= 2.31, p = .13 nor an interaction effect, F(1,147) = 1.81, p =.18. In line with our hypothesis (H3b), planned contrasts revealed that when reviews are not incentivized, friends (M = 5.55, SD = 0.96) elicited significantly higher purchase intention than strangers (M = 5.42, SD = 0.95), F(1,147) = 5.73, p =.01. In contrast, when reviews were incentivized, friends (M = 5.40, SD = 0.94) elicited as much purchase intention as strangers (M = 5.38, SD = 1.02), F<1. Discussion Given the ever-important role of user-generated online reviews in consumer decisionmaking, it is necessary to understand how review sources and incentives affects perceptions of trust and purchase intentions, especially across cultures. Our study demonstrates how review sources and incentives affect reviewer trustworthiness and purchase intentions differently across individualistic versus collectivistic cultures. Specifically, review source and incentives affect reviewer trustworthiness independently in Americans. Friends are considered more trustworthy than strangers, and non-incentivized reviews are considered more trustworthy than incentivized reviews. In contrast, the effect of review source on reviewer trustworthiness is moderated by incentive in Taiwanese participants. In particular, friends are considered more trustworthy than stranger only when reviews are not incentivized. When reviews are incentivized, trust seems to be violated, and friends are regarded as just as trustworthy as random strangers. Our contributions to the UGC literature are twofold. To date, research on UGC have largely ignored the role of culture and nationality (as well as individual differences, more broadly) can play. This potentially concerning since the proliferation of UGC are not limited to a Western sample. Our work highlights how culture can complicate findings in the UGC literature, and suggests a need to better consider the role culture plays. In addition, our research specifies the specific mechanism through which culture might influence the effect of review source and incentives affect purchase intention, trustworthiness. Additional studies will be conducted to examine how and why incentives are deemed as trust violations and reduce purchase intentions when accepted by friendly reviewers in collectivist cultures. Moreover, we will attempt to detangle trust in the reviewer versus review.

Western social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, etc are banned in China. In their places, Weibo, WeChat, Youku and more are the main social media channels in China and thus the main battlefields of social marketing for brands entering China Market. WeChat is the largest social network in China, with over 900 million users daily, for nearly all types of services, including booking flights, restaurant table reservation, shopping, paying bills, etc. To cater the needs of the new generation of Chinese digital natives, a mobile app eM++ was developed that creates new customer services and enables tailored fashion marketing. This new mobile app eM++ works well in China, will this be also well received in other countries? This research investigates consumers’ perception of this new fashion e-tailoring e-shopping concept in UK. Will this type of e-tailored services be welcome in UK? Will consumers welcome this type of e-shopping service in UK? Or they prefer the traditional way of tailoring and shopping? Which social media platforms should be used for promotion? The sample population of this research covers both male and females from China and UK aged 18 years old or above with experience of searching and/or buying clothing items online. Convenient sampling and snow-balling sampling methods are used. In UK, recruitment of volunteers for this project will be via emails to colleagues and previous students, as well as via posters of recruiting volunteers for this project posted on campus. Details of the project and experiment will be included in both emails and posters. Volunteered participants are asked to answer a pre-experiment online questionnaire. Based on their answers, suitable participants will be invited to participate the experimental part (which is trying a fashion app and then answer the post-experiment questionnaire). Participants successfully completed the experiment and post-experiment questionnaire will be given their own body measurements with a 3D model in user’s customised shape, as well as a discount coupon for future use when the app is officially launched. This research will have mainly quantitative data analysis, SPSS will be used to analyse the data. There will have a few open-ended questions that qualitative data analysis method will be employed. This research will explore the feasibility of this service in UK and formulate a cross-cultural comparison between China and UK.

Consumer arrogance is conceptualized and defined by Ruvio & Shoham (2016) as people's proclivity for demonstrating their social superiority through the acquisition, utilization, or display of consumer goods. This new notion rooted from the symbolic meaning of consumption that suggesting consumers use products as symbols to create self-identity, to maintain their self-concept, to express their self, to convey personal and social achievements and to reflect their social status to others (Holman, 1981; Belk, 1988; Hirschman & LaBarbera, 1990). This research examines the cross-cultural validity of the Ruvio & Shoham‘s (2016) consumer arrogance scale in Turkey and Romania. Data were collected from 192 Turkish and 176 Romanian students. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to test the four-factor solution. The scale demonstrates internal consistency and validity within the two countries and across countries. The cross-cultural validation tested via configural, metric and covariance methods. The results indicated that the consumer arrogance scale is consistent across countries and it can be established as a second order construct. The nomological validity with structural equation modelling results support that consumer arrogance is predicted by materialism in both countries. This cross-national study extended consumer arrogance scale in a collectivist cultural setting and contributes to enriching cross-cultural validation research as well as consumer behavior understanding.

This research addresses an important, yet under-researched, issue concerning the management of loyalty programs (LPs) in the era of globalization: how to effectively motivate LP members from different cultures to continue the reward pursuit process. Drawing on cross-cultural research and regulatory fit theory, we identify feedback framing as a low-cost, easy-to-implement strategy for building program loyalty across cultures. Two cross-cultural studies confirm all the hypotheses about the effects of feedback framing. Overall, this research advances theoretical understanding of reward pursuit behavior across cultures and offers practical advice for managing LPs in different cultural contexts.

This study explores the effect of ad variation effectiveness as a function of cultural differences, drawing from visual attention and encoding variability theory. Findings on HK and UK participants suggest that varying ad features may be most effective by changing those features that correspond to the intended consumer’s cognitive styles. Introduction Previous research suggests that showing varied ads can enhance brand recall, and result in more positive attitudes towards the brand (Unnava & Burnkrant, 1991). Following the encoding variability theory (Lee & Lee, 2016; Yaveroglu & Donthu, 2008), variations in encoded information improve recall because these variations provide additional memory representations for the target information, hence leading to more retrieval cues for the information to be recalled (Anderson & Bower, 1973). Transposed to an advertising context, each element of an ad (e.g., graphics, layout, backgrounds, products, brand logo, etc.) can serve as a retrieval cue for information recall. For instance, if a target product is embedded in two different backgrounds (e.g., a beer in a social event vs beach background), these two different contexts can serve as two different retrieval cues for the target product, compared to only one possible retrieval cue provided in same ad repetition. Since encoding variability theory relies on contextual changes and multiple memory paths to explain the ad variation effect, it may be affected by cultural difference (specifically, selective attention), which can act as a moderator of ad variation effectiveness. Western and East-Asian people have been found to have different visual attentional biases (e.g., Nisbett & Masuda, 2003), with Westerners being more attentive on focal objects (analytic perception) and Easterners focusing more on the whole picture (holistic perception). As such, the selective attention they paid towards the ad may enable them more susceptible to specific changes of an ad, thus increasing the available memory pathway towards brand information, i.e., brand recall. Brand attitudes are suggested to be formed through learning (e.g., Van Osselaer & Alba, 2000), i.e., consumers learn and process the information conveyed in an ad, which eventually affects their attitude towards a brand. This study therefore also tested the role of visual attention in moderating the effect of ad variation on brand attitude, since Eastern and Western customers learn differently due to their visual attentional styles. To examine the possible moderation of ad-variation effectiveness by visual attention in a cross-cultural context, this study exposed HK (Eastern) and UK (Western) participants with two different varied-ad executions, foreground-varied ads (ads that vary in focal object) and background-varied ads (ads that change in background features). Identical-ad execution was also included as a baseline. We hypothesized that, due to the difference in attentional bias in Eastern participants (holistic) and Western participants (analytic), different types of ad variations might results in different extents of effectiveness of the ad variation. Method A 2 (Culture: UK vs. HK) x3 (Ad type: identical vs. background-varied vs. foregroundvaried) between-subject factorial design experiment was used in this study. We used a fictitious Beer brand - Helga Brugge - for this study. In the identical-ad condition, the same target ad was repeated three times. We designed a target beer and two beer pints as foreground features and background features included a camping scene (in identical-ad condition), and a football stadium, camping scene and a social event scene (in background-varied condition). In foreground-varied condition, while keeping the background image constant (camping background), the foreground features differed, i.e., a bottle beer, a canned beer, and a bottle beer with two beer pins. See Figure 1 for the target ad stimuli. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the three ad type conditions and watched the 20 advertisement slides (3 target ads with 17 filler ads), each of which was presented singularly for 3 seconds. Filler ads were chosen from real ads that were not used anymore at the time of the study. They included various product categories other than beer such as toy, beverage, and cosmetics. After being exposed to the advertisement, participants were asked to answer a series of questions measuring a number of variables in the following order: ad recall and brand recall (Lee & Lee, 2016), brand attitude (MacKenzie, Lutz & Belch, 1986) and demographic information. Data was collecting online using Qualtrics. Both Chinese and English versions of instructions were back translated (Miracle and Bang, 2002). Results After excluding incomplete datasets and participants whose nationality was not British or Hong Kong, the final sample comprised 117 UK (78 female) and 108 HK (63 female) participants. Cross-cultural Cognitive Differences in Perception To confirm the underlying assumption that HK participants tend to have holistic visual perception and UK participants tend to have analytical visual perception, participants’ responses were coded to identify the type of foreground information (e.g., beers, pints, foams) and background information (e.g., sunset, camping). The coding processes were independently performed by two coders; Cohen’s κ analyses showed a moderate agreement (Sim & Wright, 2005) between the two coders' judgments on both foreground information (κ = .781, p < .001, 95% CI, .716 to .846) and background information (κ = .775, p < .001, 95% CI, .706 to .843). Two 2(Culture: UK vs. HK) x 3(Ad type: identical, background-varied and foregroundvaried) analysis of variance (ANOVA) were conducted. Results support our assumption: UK participants elicited more comments on foreground information (M= 1.56, SD= 1.20) than HK participants did (M= 1.05, SD= 1.03; F(1, 219)= 11.80, p= .001, =.051), and HK participants elicited more comments on background information (M= 1.69, SD= 1.19) than UK participants did (M= 1.09, SD= 1.03; F(1, 219)=16.22, p<.001, =.069). There was no statistically significant main effect on ad type or any statistically significant interaction effect. Brand Recall For UK participants, we hypothesized that their selective attention towards focal objects would enable them more susceptible to changes in the foreground-varied ad conditions, but not in the background-varied ad conditions. Chi-squared analyses revealed that UK participants’ brand recall scores in foreground-varied condition (M=89.2%) was significantly higher than those in both background-varied (M=53.7%): X^2 (1, N=78) = 11.80, p<.001, ϕ =.39, and identical conditions (M=43.6%): X^2 (1, N=76) = 17.5, p<.001, ϕ =.48. There was no difference in brand recall between identical and background-varied conditions. Conversely, we hypothesized that both background- and foreground-varied ads would be equally effective for HK participants due to their holistic attention towards both foreground and background objects. Multiple chi-squared tests revealed that, HK participants’ brand recall scores in both foreground-varied condition (M=59.5.%) and background-varied condition (M=58.3%) were significantly higher than that in the identical condition (M=34.3.%; foreground-varied vs. identical,X^2 (1, N=72) = 4.57, p=.032, ϕ =.25; background-varied vs. identical, X^2 (1, N=71) = 4.13, p= .042, ϕ =.24). The difference between the two varied ad conditions was not significant. Brand Attitudes We hypothesized that HK and UK participants’ brand attitudes also differ to different extents in the three conditions, following a similar pattern found in measuring brand recall. Consistent with this, independent-sample t-tests on UK participants revealed that the mean scores for brand attitude in both foreground-varied ads condition (M= 4.64) was higher than that in both identical ads condition (M= 3.71; t=-4.09, p<.001, d=0.94) and background-varied ads condition (M=3.98; t=3.49, p=.001, d=0.80). No significant difference was found between the identical-ad condition and background-varied condition. For HK participants, results of t-tests revealed that the mean scores for brand attitude in both foreground-varied condition (M= 4.18) and background-varied condition (M=4.33) were both significantly higher than that in identical ads condition (M= 3.53; foreground vs identical: t=-3.19, p=.002, d=0.51; background vs identical: t=4.87, p<.001, d=0.80). No significant difference was found between the two varied ads conditions. Discussion This research provides supporting evidence that visual attentional biases initiated by cultural differences can moderate the effectiveness of ad variation. Specifically, for UK participants, ad variation appeared to be effective only in foreground-varied ads. Conversely, both foreground-varied and background-varied ads were effective for HK participants. These findings have both theoretical and managerial implications. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first cross-cultural research in the domain of ad variation. It addresses a gap in the ad variation literature, by identifying the moderating effect that cultural differences can have on the ad variation effect. This opens up new research directions including considering other forms of cultural variations (e.g., language) and cognitive differences (e.g., reasoning styles) to better understand individual differences in the domain of ad-variation. This study also offers insights for international marketers looking at tailoring their advertising strategies for different target audiences to maximize ad- and cost-effectiveness. Besides varying features that correspond to the intended consumer’s cognitive styles, marketers could also consider priming consumers’ cognitive styles when determining advertising strategies, as previous research has shown that consumers’ cognitive styles are relatively malleabile (Lin & Han, 2009). For example, when executing foreground-varied ads, inserting them into an article that could induce an analytic cognition (e.g., bibliography programs about a successful life story of a person) would be an effective strategy. This study has two main limitations. First, it only included data from nationals of the United Kingdom and Hong Kong. Non-cognitive cultural differences such as language and geographical mobility can affect cognitive styles (e.g., Rhode & Voyer, 2015). Future research should replicate and expand findings by looking at more countries (e.g., US, South Korea), with increased level of control on relevant non-cognitive crosscultural factors. Second, this study only looked at one hedonic product category: beer. Future research can replicate and expand findings, by looking at different product categories (e.g., utilitarian products, such as toothbrushes).

Terror management theory (TMT) highlights the impact of death related thoughts on consumers’ decisions in everyday life (Hayes, Schimel, Arndt, & Faucher, 2010) and the various coping behaviors they adopt to manage this terror-related anxiety. Individuals exposed to man-made (e.g. terrorist attacks, wars) or natural disasters (e.g. earthquakes, tsunamis) are obliged to mitigate the awareness of their eventual death or mortality salience (MS). MS plays a significant role in shaping individuals consumption behaviors, particularly in terms of materialism and ethnocentrism. This study aims to address (1) how MS-induced feelings impact consumers’ consumption criteria, preferences and behaviors, and (2) what contextual and cultural factors ought to be considered in this regard. Nineteen focus groups in total were conducted in Japan, Lebanon and the UK. Based on grounded theory approach, we found that consumers’ feelings based on their traumatic experiences exhibit some similarities and differences depending on their own historical, socioeconomic, and cultural backgrounds. Future research should include more countries and take into account a variety of cultural backgrounds. Moreover, as Japan, Lebanon and the UK represent three of the most prominent religions, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity respectively, religiosity may be a relevant concept in defining and interpreting MS in a cross-cultural context.

The purpose of this research was to examine consumers from distinct cultural groups and examine similarities and differences in their green purchase behaviors. The sample consisted of consumers from 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. A total of 334 participants (164 for U.S.A. sample and 170 for South Korea sample) were recruited to examine purchase behaviors toward organic cotton apparel. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the relationship between the TPB constructs and compare the results between the two country groups. AMOS 24 and SPSS 24 were used to analyze the data. 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 two groups showed different results regarding attitude-purchase intention, descriptive norms-attitude, and injunctive norms-purchase intentions relationship. For example, while attitude was the strongest predictor of purchase intention in the U.S.A. group, it had an insignificant effect in South Korea group. For South Korea group PBC had the strongest effect on consumers purchase intention. Multi-group SEM results showed that the difference in the chi-square statistics between the two models was significant. Significant differences were found in two structural paths: attitude → purchase intention and PBC → purchase intention. TPB provided a useful framework for explaining green purchase behaviors in both countries as PBC and descriptive norms strongly predicted consumers’ intention to purchase. However, South Koreans were more affected by the social pressure: their purchase intention were strongly influenced by both injunctive norms and descriptive norms which was in contrast to the findings from American consumers. Injunctive norms were an insignificant predictor of purchase intentions in the U.S.A. group. Injunctive norms reflect individual’s perception of whether the behavior is approved or disapproved by others while descriptive norms involve individual’s perception of whether the behavior is typically performed by others. Therefore, when Korean consumers perceive that others believe it is a good idea to purchase organic cotton apparel and when they actually see others purchasing the product, they will feel more inclined to purchase the product themselves. This result is consistent with previous research that suggest conformity is a crucial factor for people belonging to a collectivistic culture (e.g., Hofstede, 1980; Kitayama et al., 1995).

Since 2008 to 2014 the operating margins of Chinese traditional retail industry went a sustained downward. Instead, the operating margins of online-store have been the sudden explosion. In this case which online-store sale the same products with traditional market, my research try to find out how to improve the state of traditional market since 92.5% practitioners of retail industry are doing their business in traditional market. Customer equity can estimate customer lifetime value for the company (Rust et al, 2004). The firm can make proper marketing strategy with customer equity. Customer equity can both satisfy consumers and make a profit for the company (Lemon et al., 2001).So we built a model to connect service quality and customer equity to study how to prove the competitive power of traditional market. In this paper we used customer satisfaction and brand attitude as mediating variables since Store brands have become an important contributor to retail differentiation and basis for building store loyalty (Dodd and Lindley, 2003) and in retail market customer equity varies with customer satisfaction( Pappu and Quester 2006). Considering that Chinese economic growth rate was slowing down, traditional market is being a priority for Chinese Government to relieve severe export pressure and employment pressure. In this research we would like to study the relationships among service quality, customer satisfaction and brand attitude and how they influence customer equity in traditional markets. For this purpose we built a model which composed by service quality, satisfaction brand attitude and customer equity and tested it. The survey was collected from traditional markets in China and South Korea and the data was analyzed by AMOS and SPSS.

The personal luxury goods market in the Middle-East is the 10th largest in the world, right before Hong-Kong and Russia, which are both well-established markets for luxury products (D’Arpizio, Levato, Zito & Montgolfier, 2015). However, luxury consumer behavior consumption in the Middle-East and its influencing factors have largely been left unexplored. This paper builds on previous research among German luxury consumers and investigates the formation of brand love and its impact on willingness-to-pay among Arab luxury consumers. Compared with the German study, it is found that Arab luxury consumers show weaker brand love tendencies. In addition, materialistic characteristics and tendencies for conspicuous consumption among Arab consumers strongly influence brand love in the context of luxury fashion and accessories, which confirms previous findings. Results further document that for Arab luxury consumers neither conspicuous consumption tendencies nor brand love can be interpreted as a predictor for an increase in willingness to pay. Hence, for those consumers, long-lasting emotional consumer-brand relationships are not responsible for generating additional profits and do not explain why the willingness to pay for luxury goods was significantly higher among Arab consumers. Finally, results indicate that though some elements of luxury consumption are shared among German and Arab luxury consumers (e.g. fashion involvement, the evaluation of particular brands, gender and brand love tendencies) there are significant differences in terms of e.g. brand preferences, general willingness to pay for luxury fashion and accessories and willingness to pay for conspicuous luxury goods. This research provides insights into the formation of brand love among Arab luxury consumers and how it informs luxury consumption. Moreover, it sheds light on similarities and differences across the two samples and increases the understanding of luxury consumption in a broader geographic context.

The concept of „Sustainability‟ has become as major concern and it used by consumers and corporations to convey the concept of taking care of the environment. Environmental concern has led to sustainable consumption in a variety of product categories, such as electricity, textiles, apparel, food, and grocery products (Chan, 2001; Harrison, Newholm, & Shaw, 2005; Vermeir & Verbeke, 2006a, 2006b). Interest of the negative environmental impacts are rapidly increasing in present fashion business and consumer behavior has become a rising concern of the consumption and fashion supply chain to apply sustainable consumption (Birtwistle & Moore, 2007; Fineman, 2001). The environmental and social concern recognized in fashion industry from 1990‟s. However, the complexity of conceptual definition of sustainability and ecologically responsible consumer generates different and mistaken perception to consumer. In addition, in fashion industry, the terms of „eco-fashion‟, „environmentally friendly fashion‟,„green fashion‟, „ethical fashion‟, and „sustainable fashion‟ are frequently used interchangeably to describe the same concept. These interchangeable terminology is leading to confusion of the readers by the non-unified terminology (Choi et al., 2012). Also, consumers seem to have narrow scope and little understanding of sustainable fashion. In general, consumers focuses on environmental aspect not the wide-range of complexity of environment, social, and economical concern (Cervellon, Hjerth, Ricard, & Carey, 2010). The growing number of fashion brands are leveraging on green branding initiatives. Green marketing is increasing rapidly in corporate aspects and for a consumer perspective, global consumers are recognizing a personal accountability to take responsibility for social and environmental issues. Despite the fact many of individuals‟ willingness to purchase green products has increased in the last few years, however, there is limited studies suggest that purchase of green or sustainable products. Consumer research on sustainable fashion has mainly focused on consumer behaviors towards sustainable fashion products (SFPs); however, relevant studies that examined the whole process of the predicting proenvironmental behavior cross nationally value and the eWOM are still scarce. The purposes of research model are 1) to identify the determinants of eWOM intention on consumers' purchase intentions, 2) to examine the information adoption process as precursors of purchase intention of sustainable fashion, and 3) to testify different message types effects to information adoption process.

Introduction In the contemporary business environment, fashion companies ought to cope with fundamental changes marketing communication has conventionally been performed. In response to shifting socio-demographic, environmental and market-related conditions, gradually new forms of fashion promotion have evolved (Fill, 2006). Nowadays, the global fashion industry experiences a reduced dependence on mass media advertising and an enlarged reliance on dialogic, relationship-oriented and digitally grounded communication methods (Chitty, Barker, Valos & Shimp, 2012). Against this backdrop, it is irrefutable that social media technologies have been remarkably transforming the ways in which modern-day fashion communication is practiced (Brennan & Schafer, 2010; Funk et al., 2016; Dillon, 2012; Saarinen, Tinnilä & Tseng, 2006). The competitive and widely saturated apparel market is facing an era of intensive proliferation of brands, an epoche of awe bombardment of advertisements, which makes a well-though-out communicational strategy ever more imperative, particularly in a cross-cultural context (Dillon, 2012). Yet, studies that analyze the importance of social media in relation to traditional means of fashion communication are scarce. Even though, empirical introductions start being made to this explicit issue, considerable research deficiency subsists in the realm of cross-cultural fashion communication and social media optimization. Therefore, the rationale of this paper at hand is to contribute to balance out this research gap by providing evidence from four countries.

E-commerce is a global phenomenon that reshapes retailing and the appropriate multinational corporations. The goal of this study is to get a better understanding of the relationship between online customer reviews (OCRs), sales and sales after returns in the cross-national and cross-cultural context. We discuss our hypotheses by empirically analyzing a large and unique data set from a European fashion e-commerce company. This study links a wide range of transaction data (0.8 billion page clicks, 17 thousand different products, 499 brands, 50 product categories, 22 million sold and 11 million returned items) from six different countries (Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland) with a large set of OCRs (0.7 million). Our results show that positive OCRs can lead to higher sales and sales after returns with considerable cross-country differences. We argue that differences in culture provide a substantial explanation for these effects by using Hofstede's cultural framework.

The main objective of this study is to compare the difference of consumers’ perception on brand context. The focal factors are brand equity, brand personality and perceived customer value. This would enhance the knowledge of cross-cultural brand equity and brand personality, especially in Fast-Fashion industry. In addition, the findings of this study show that, for a brand in different marketing context, how customers perceive the brand and contribute it to their value. The sample size of 800 consumers is applied (400 Japanese consumers and 400 Thai consumers. The focal brand is randomly selected by the researcher. The Structural Equation Modelling with multiple group analysis would be conducted for examining the differences of consumer perception on a Fast-Fashion brand. All major model fits indicator would be evaluated. Finally, the results of the study would be discussed.

Fast fashion refers to a strategy to respond to the latest fashion trends by short production and distribution lead times, limited supplies and rapid inventory turnover rates. Whilst research on fast fashion mostly investigates producers’ side, e.g. supply chain, scholarship exploring consumers’ side of fast fashion remains limited. In addition, research on fast fashion consumption tends to neglect similarities and differences of consumers (e.g. needs, wants, desires, and demographic characteristics) in different parts of the world, particularly developed and developing economies. The aim of this study is threefold: Firstly, by focusing on the emergent Turkish market and the established Finnish market, it analyses and compares fast fashion consumption of Turkish and Finnish consumers. Secondly, through qualitative and quantitative studies, it reveals the components of fast fashion consumption, which include appearance management, repeat visiting behavior, product use duration, interaction with social media, impulse buying, willingness to pay full price, hedonic consumption, and fashion involvement, and develops a scale for measuring fast fashion consumption. Thirdly, it evaluates the impact of each component and examines the influence of demographic variables on fast fashion consumption. The findings demonstrate both personal and national differences in the components of fast fashion and point to a need for an in-depth, cross-cultural study on ethical and environmental issues related to fast fashion consumption.

Consumers around the world are increasingly categorized by parallel needs and similar longings which lead to an ever-more homogeneous global market (Chan, Li, Diehl & Terlutter, 2007; van Ittersum & Wong, 2010). The acceleration of global consumer assemblies has concurred with the occurrence and upsurge of global citizens and consumer cultures (Gao, Mittal & Zhang, 2015). Yet, many researchers still claim that cultural differences have to be considered to grasp buying customs of global (fashion) consumers (Tahmid, 2012). The rationale of this paper is to balance out this research gap and to contribute to the current debate of global vs. local (Cleveland, Papadopoulos & Laroche, 2011; Askegaard, Arnould & Kjelgaard, 2005; Arnett, 2002) fashion consumer lifestyle segments with joint or divergent dominant apparel purchase motivations. Motivational factors influencing apparel purchase behavior can be separated into rational, emotional (perceptional) and patronage motives (Diamond, 2005). In the main, Sproles & Kendall´s consumer characteristics approach (1986) provided the conceptual foundation of the present study of fashion consumption motivations (fashion referred to as apparel & clothing), partially modified to suit the peculiarities that mold fashion consumption. The total of 23 motivations is made up of 15 multi-item scales and 8 single items that complement the fashion-specific range of motivational drivers. Especially referring to fashion purchase motivations, countries like Germany and Austria (despite their prosperous market economies) have so far been markedly neglected and even for France, although universally recognized as the leading country for fashion, in-depth research on motivational parameters shaping individual shopping activities is scarce. Likewise, investigations on American (a nation with intense spending capacity) fashion purchase motivations are extremely seldom. The objective of this paper is threefold and expressed through the following three research questions: (1) What are important lifestyle cluster characterized by central fashion motivations? (2) Can representatives for each cluster be found in all countries? (3) Are there country specific differences which point to either global or local fashion consumer segments? The predefined set of fashion consumption motivations was put to test via an online quantitative consumer survey. The questionnaire was delineated in three languages, using a translation-back translation procedure and was thoroughly pre-tested. Altogether, 693 non-student individuals (482 females, 211 males; from 18 to 87 years of age) participated in the survey, equally distributed across countries, ages and gender among the four nations (despite the fact that quota sampling was used). Subjects were asked to evaluate the total of 23 fashion consumption motivations on a 7-point Likert scale. A factor analysis was conducted for each of the established multi-item scales (with a CA value of mostly above .70). Measurement Invariance (Steenkamp & Baumgartner 1998) across the four countries was assessed. Subsequently, a cluster analysis was carried out using the Ward algorithm, incorporating all 23 fashion consumption motivations to acquire a more detailed description of the consumer segments. Five consumer clusters were extracted through Elbow criteria: (1) pragmatic, socially-conscious, brand loyals (n= 195), (2) sustainable fashion shoppers (n=127), (3) detached fashion disinterested (n=128), (4) passionate, luxury-status fashion-leaders (n= 107), and (5) experiential fashion adventure-seekers (n=136). Country-wise, significant differences are manifested between the consumer segments, X²(12, 693) = 69.12, p=.000. Findings portend that consumers in all research countries can be allocated to one of the five clusters. This condition leads to the clear presumption that global consumer fashion consumer segments do exist. Nonetheless, some national divergences become evident. Particularly if a fashion brand or company intends to address a target group affiliating to the consumer cluster 1: pragmatic, socially-conscious, brand loyals, cluster 2: sustainable fashion shoppers or cluster 3: experiential fashion adventure-seekers, national differences need to be taken into consideration. Markedly, a pragmatic positioning appears to be most auspicious to target American and also French consumers whereas a sustainability and ethnocentric orientation seems to be substantially promising to reach German and also Austrian consumers, demonstrating that a complete standardization of a fashion firm´s positioning through the transnational appeal of dominant consumption motivations seems not yet to be advisable. Further implications, limitations and directions for future research are available upon request and will be addressed more thoroughly at the conference.

The objective of this study was to explore the role of familiarity in cross-cultural product perception and perception changes according to food systems (hot sauce and spicy-chicken) in Korean and US consumers. Free choice profiling was conducted by Korean and US consumers on four spicy-chicken samples made using four hot sauce samples. Half of the hot sauce samples were selected to be more familiar to US consumers and vice versa to Korean consumers. A previous study that investigated cross-cultural perceptions of the same four hot sauce samples in US and Korean consumers was incorporated in this study. For distinct sample differences, US and Korean consumers perceived products similarly. However, for less obvious differences, flavor familiarity seemed to affect consumers’ product perceptions. In addition, product perceptions changed more dramatically according to food systems for familiar samples in each country. The findings of this study show that consumers’ product perception can be affected by flavor familiarities.

Well-developed listening skills are crucial to success in the marketing profession. Poor listening skills have been rated as the most important contributing factor to salesperson failure (Ingram et al., 1992). Listening errors can result in conflicts, missed business opportunities, alienated relationships, and a waste of time and money (Bergeron & Laroche, 2009). Recognizing the importance of effective listening, organizations such as Pfizer, Ford, IBM have introduced listening training programs for all their personnel (Shepherd et al., 1997). A number of definitions exist for “listening” (e.g., Bergeron & Laroche, 2009). From the marketing perspective, this paper adopts a well-accepted listening definition as “the cognitive process of actively sensing, interpreting, evaluating and responding to the verbal and nonverbal messages of present or potential customers” (Castleberry & Shepherd, 1993, p.36). Prior research has underscored the importance of “active listening” strategies such as active empathetic listening (Drollinger et al., 2006; Bodie, 2011); adaptive selling (Spiro & Weitz, 1990); and listening across cultures (Imhof & Janusik, 2006). However, despite its importance, neither marketing students nor professionals receive coaching or instruction for situations when listening is particularly difficult – i.e., when we are required to listen carefully to another person in the presence of hindrances to communication (distractions, inattention, poor delivery). Salespeople, students, journalists, counselors … are often faced with the task of “tough listening” - when they must listen carefully to a person that is not communicating in an interesting or engaging manner, when the environment is full of distractions, or when they as listeners are fatigued. The major hindrances to effective listening have been well documented, but extant research that addresses how people might overcome those hindrances is scant. The purpose of this paper is to explore the range of strategies that people use to improve their comprehension and empathy of others when they wish to listen carefully but find it difficult to do so. The practice of effective listening is perhaps one of the most human and fundamental components of community, commerce, and culture. Several academic disciplines such as marketing, education, communication, and psychology have closely examined the listening process in an effort to understand and improve it.