This study analyzed the effects of fashion consumers’ moral identity and empathy propensity on ethical consumption attitude and donation behavior, and the effect of ethical consumption attitude on donation behavior. The survey was conducted on consumers over the 20s who experienced the donation of fashion products, 384 responses were used for data analysis. The result showed that the internality and symbolism of moral identity had a positive effect on ethical consumption attitudes. The all factors of empathy propensity positively affected eco-friendly oriented consumption, and cognitive empathy and social empathy positively affected boycott oriented consumption. The cognitive empathy, social empathy and relational empathy positively affected community oriented consumption and practice oriented consumption. Furthermore, social empathy and relational empathy positively affected recycling oriented consumption. The eco-friendly, boycott, community, and recycling oriented consumption positively affected temporal donation. The all factors of ethical consumption attitude positively affected emotional donation, and eco-friendly, community, recycling, and practice oriented consumption positively affected material donations. The internality and symbolism of moral identity positively affected temporal and emotional donation, and the symbolism except internality positively affected material donation. The cognitive empathy, social empathy and relational empathy positively affected the temporal donation and material donation. In addition, the all factors of empathy propensity positively affected emotional donation. The results of this study will contribute to the ethical product strategy, marketing, and sustainable development of the fashion industry.

The key objectives of the research is to examine the impacts of consumption community and underlying motivations for joining consumption communities in consuming masculine products among Korean female consumers. This study is the first to link a consumption community to social identity theory. To find an answer to our research questions, the study uses Korean Harley Davidson female riders who ride the American heavy motorcycle in a consumption community to answer the research questions. Harley Davidson is an icon of masculine products due to the size and the powerful engine of the motorcycle. A hermeneutic approach is adopted to understand Korean female consumers’ motivations in joining consumption communities and their perceptions about riding a Harley Davidson motorcycle. A hermeneutic method uses personal in-depth interviews to elicit the behaviors, values, and motivations that researchers are trying to understand (Kozinets, 2001; Thompson et al., 1994). The hermeneutic method is appropriate when researchers are attempting to understand motivations, values and beliefs deeply embedded in a person’s mind (Thompson et al., 1994).

Current study focused on investigating the effects of the self-dissociation as a thought in which consumers dis-identify or dissociate with the threatened in-group and the escapism as a tendency of consumers’ distracting themselves and avoiding their thoughts about the in-group under severe but adoptable criticism by turning their attention elsewhere on across-domain compensatory consumption intention. And It explored not only the positive roles of undesirability thought against the in-group in consumers’ forming the self-dissociation and the escapism, but also the effects of negative emotion to the in-group felt at the place of being exposed to the criticism against the in-group on the escapism. Research design, data, and methodology: The experiment was performed with the in-group-threatening single factor within-subject design. Questionnaire data were collected from 196 undergraduate students, and the data were used to testing research hypotheses by structural equation model of Amos 21.0. Results: First, both the self-dissociation of consumers’ dis-identifying with the in-group criticized severely by others and the escapism of their deliberately directing their thoughts and distracting their attention away from thinking the in-group positively influenced on the across-domain compensatory consumption intention. Second, the negative emotion positively influenced on the escapism. Third, the undesirability thought to the in-group under the severe criticism positively effected on the self-dissociation as well as the escapism. Putting in the nutshell, the findings of this study are consistent with the idea that consumers can overcome the negative selfdiscrepancy on one dimension of their social identity by distracting themselves and avoiding thinking about the threatened in-group to find meaning on another dimension which might lead them to the place of doing the across-domain compensatory consumption. Conclusions - Focusing on the results of this study, checking which aspects of consumers’ social identity are linked to products or brands is at issue to marketers when the consumers are faced with the criticism against the in-group. The marketers should build the messages about their products or brand not related to the checked aspects, and communicate the messages, to lead the consumers to the place of doing the across-domain compensatory consumption by their products or brands.