There has been many studies on customer satisfaction and word of mouth(WOM) in the field of marketing, but few researchers applied it to foreign students who became a target of Korean universities experiencing great difficulty in recruiting new students. For this reason, this study analyzed Chinese student’s variables influencing on satisfaction and WOM towards Korean universities. Four basic characteristic variables of Chinese students had a huge impact on negative WOM communication intention. In contrast, academic status variable had a significant impact on positive online WOM communication intention. Satisfaction factor was positively correlated with positive WOM communication intention and negatively related to negative WOM communication intention. In this respect, Korean universities need to pay more attention to satisfaction level of foreign students and WOM communication. Furthermore, they should plan and implement differentiated strategies for promoting themselves in recruiting foreign students.

E-WOM is described as all informal communications directed at consumers through Internet-based technology related to the usage or characteristics of particular goods and services, or their sellers (Litvin, Goldsmith and Pan, 2008). In contrast with conventional WOM, e-WOM has unique characteristics. For instance, it often occurs in strangers or fellow consumers, and can be and can be anonymous (Goldsmith & Horowitz 2006; Sen & Lerman 2007). In this regard, people feel free to express opinions without identity disclosure (Goldsmith & Horowitz 2006). INTRODUCTION In a word dominated by social media, the diffusion of e-WOM is undoubtedly speeding up. Plus the international trade prevailing, people can experience products from all over the world at home, and they typically collect both positive and negative e-WOM for domestic and foreign brands with the aim of comprehensively evaluating the brands and their products. It is worth mentioning that in reality consumers often adheres to consumer ethnocentrism (CE) to counter the significant effects of imports on domestic economies and defend against foreign products in local markets. So far, there has been relatively little research on the effect of e-WOM on CE. In our study, we employ social media to discover the impacts of e-WOM on CE with respect to domestic and foreign smart phone brands from the Chinese e-WOM receiver’s perspective. Simultaneously, we test consumer pride and prejudice toward mature industries in the home country. Drawing on survey data from 302 consumers, our study reveals several significant findings. First, positive e-WOM regarding local brands may enhance CE, whereas positive e-WOM regarding foreign brands may reduce CE. Second, Negative e-WOM may break the advantage of CE for domestic brand, which result in the dominance of foreign brand. Third, positive e-WOM may enhance brand equity for both domestic and foreign brands. By contrast, negative e-WOM has no significant influence on Chinese consumers’ attitude toward brand equity. Finally, CE has positive influence on brand equity for domestic brand but not effect on foreign brand. To our best of knowledge, our paper is the first to study the effect of e-WOM on CE, which enriches the relevant theory with regard to CE.

Despite the consumer's interest in sustainable fashion and the sustainable fashion phenomenon in the fashion business being a serious issue for our society, only a limited number of studies focus on investigating the consumer's perceived value of sustainable fashion. Although eco-friendly consumption has been recognized as one of the major concerns of the fashion business, environmentally prudent consumption has not yet transformed into purchasing behavior. However, fashion companies try to offer many seasonal collections due to the fast fashion trends to meet the consumer's needs. Such trends have brought about an enormous amount of apparel waste, negative environmental impacts and serious questions about social issues. In addition, today’s fashion consumers appear to have a narrow point of view on sustainable/green fashion that focuses mainly on organic clothing, and avoids or shows no interest in the wider scope of sustainability encompassing environmental, social and economic concerns (Cervellon, Hjerth, Richard, & Carey, 2010). Increasing the consumption of sustainable fashion necessitates research into how fashion consumers make purchasing decisions. Therefore, the information and value of sustainable fashion need to be diffused by fashion consumers. Hethom and Ulasewicz (2008) stated that the consumer acts as a major stakeholder with the greatest impact on the development of a sustainable industry. Furthermore, it is necessary to examine the consumer's purchase decision-making process for sustainable fashion products in academia. According to previous studies, the awareness of sustainability issues is also growing due to the environmental impacts. However, this awareness has not yet affected apparel purchasing behavior and actual purchasing (Kim & Damhorst, 1998). In order to affect the behavior of fashion consumers and expand sustainable fashion in today's marketplace, it is essential to identify the influencing factors in purchase decision-making process for sustainable fashion products.