The twenty-first century has been shaped by various catastrophes and scandals of companies which negatively influence the consumers’ perception of the firm. As a result, consumers nowadays are more skeptic and expect transparent information from companies such as details on product origin, labor standards and environmental aspects. Companies can profit from greater transparency on an organizational level through the improved interaction with their employees and business partners (Parris et al., 2016). Hultman and Axelsson (2007) propose that increased transparency by a company could have not only positive, but also negative results. Furthermore, consumers, too, are expected to participate in change towards more societal responsibility (Vitell, 2015). Thus, the purpose of this research is to investigate the influence of a) relevant types of corporate transparency and b) potential consequences on consumer attitudes and behavior such as perceived credibility, skepticism and purchase intention that can lead to consumer responsibility. This research applied a mixed-methods design in the context of the fashion industry. The findings of Study 1 (in-depth interviews) indicate that the two most relevant types of corporate transparency are supply chain transparency and cost transparency. In Study 2 (scenario-based experiment), these two types of transparency were tested for their effects on credibility and skepticism. Building on Information Processing Theory of Consumer Choice, the experiment showed that corporate transparency has a positive influence on the perceived credibility of a company and thereby decreases consumer skepticism. In contrast, it doesn’t have an influence on the consumer’s felt responsibility. Moreover, corporate transparency has a positive influence on the consumer’s responsible purchase intention. It is important to note, though, that the two types of transparency do not yield different results. In other words, as long as a company provides more infor-mation than commonly expected, e.g. on the production sites or on labor costs, perceived credibility of the company and, thus, consumers’ purchase intentions can be increased.

Purpose: While many consumers claim to include ethical considerations in their consumption behavior, only a small fraction adheres to these self-made standards. For example, although two thirds of consumers polled by Nielsen in 2015 in thirteen countries stated to be willing to pay more for sustainable brands only ten percent actually purchased this type of product. Even if responsibly produced products still only account for a small share of the market they represent a pervasive marketing phenomenon that merits further scientific research. The so-called attitude-behavior-gap has received a considerable amount of attention not only in the business context, but also in scientific marketing research. Nevertheless, previous studies commonly discussed responsible consumption from an information-processing perspective concentrating on the rational and goal-directed side of responsible consumption. What is still largely missing, though, is the consideration of emotions as drivers or influencing factors for consumer responsibility, even though the few existing studies suggest a positive influence. This holds especially true for the self-conscious emotions of guilt and pride. Furthermore, the few studies at hand generally focus on non-durable goods like tea, coffee or juice and leave a research gap with regard to durable products like fashion items. Thus, the aim of this study is to further investigate the influence of self-conscious emotions on responsible consumption in the context of the fashion industry. Specifically, the influence of the two emotions guilt and pride as well as the influence of social visibility on the consumer’s decision-making and purchasing process shall be investigated. Design/methodology/approach: A mixed method approach containing qualitative and quantitative methods is applied. While in-depth interviews and focus groups with fashion consumers shed light on potential influencing factors and outcomes of self-conscious emotions, a scenario-based experiment further validates these results on influence of guilt and pride in the context of responsible consumption. The experiment follows a 2 (negative vs. positive responsibility outcome) x 2 (social vs. no social visibility) design and is conducted via online questionnaires. Findings: Experiences of self-conscious emotions provide feedback on past behavior that ultimately leads to a revised behavior linked to consumer responsibility in the future. Specifically, pride (guilt) can potentially lead to increased (diminished) word-of-mouth and purchase intentions. Research limitations/implications: Limitations lie in the type of research design as a scenario-based experiment was chosen for the quantitative study. Future research should investigate the topic at hand with a field study, ideally with a suitable partner from the industry. Another limitation lies in the examination of only one industry that strongly differs from other industries. Further investigations should compare the self-conscious emotions’ impacts on different types of industries. Practical implications: The current research provides suggestions on the adequate use of communications to promote sustainable fashion brands and to develop according campaigns that elicit emotional reactions from consumers. Furthermore, although guilt and pride refer to past behavior, they can nevertheless be used by management to influence future consumer actions, e.g. choice of responsibly produced garments as opposed to conventional ones. Incentives for successful word-of-mouth of sustainable fashion brands could strengthen this effect. Additionally, the final results deliver insights on whether social visibility should be increased (e.g. through offerings in offline channels) or rather reduced (e.g. through promotions in online channels). Originality/value: This study closes a research gap by investigating consumer responsibility not from an information-processing, but an emotion-based perspective. It furthermore complements research on emotions in the context of responsible consumption by investigating durable products, namely fashion items, that differ strongly from previously examined product groups like tea or coffee.

With increasing challenges like climate change, companies are confronted with rising expectations from stakeholders, especially consumers. The paper investigates consumers’ reactions towards CSR strategies using a case-study and focus-groups. Results imply that digitally-based strategies at the core of newly found fashion companies are perceived generally positive, although with mixed impressions.