Analysing the Consumer Behavior Regarding Sustainable Fashion Using Theory of Planned Behavior

Abstract

Sustainable fashion, which is a term used for describing the clothing that is designed for longer lifetime uses, produced in ethical production systems using materials and processes that are not harmful to environment and the workers and which incorporates the fair trade principles with sweatshop-free labor conditions and makes use of eco-labelled or recycled materials, gained favor by the fashion industry specialists and the consumption market. Although the aspects of sustainable fashion regarding the selection of material, manufacturing process and supply chain were discussed by the researchers, the analyses examining the approach of the consumers towards sustainable fashion are quiet limited in number. Extended from Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) with an additional dimension corresponding to a volitional control, Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) was confirmed to be an effective model to predict the consumer intentions analyzing the three independent determinants of intention, which are “attitude towards the behavior”, “subjective norm”, and “perceived behavioral control” respectively. TPB was used to explain the consumers’ approach towards either sustainability concept in general or sustainable products and processes in specific fields such as organic food consumption, green lodging, visiting green restaurants, purchasing luxury fashion produced in sweatshops, buying organic cotton apparel, using environmentally friendly transportation. Within the analysis, TPB model was used in original form or extended form with additional constructs self-construal, beliefs, ethical concerns or past experiences. In this study, the approach of the consumers’ intention toward sustainable fashion purchasing was investigated using TPB where TPB model was applied in original form and extended form including the behavioral beliefs, normative beliefs and control beliefs affecting the determinants of the intention construct. After conducting an online survey among 339 participants in Turkey, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling were used to analyse the models. The findings showed that both models were validated and can be used to explain the approach of the consumers towards sustainable fashion products. According to both models, among the three constructs determining the intention was found to be attitude construct primarily, which shows the degree of favourable or unfavourable evaluation of the behaviour in question. The perceived behavioral control corresponding to the perceived ease or difficulty of performing the behavior was found to be less influential on the customer intention whereas the subjective norms defined as the perceived social pressure to perform or not perform the behavior was found to be influential more on the original TPB model. In the extended TPB model, whereas the attitudes were found to be influenced by behavioural beliefs, no relation was found between control beliefs and perceived behavioural control. Finally, the subjective norms and mormative beliefs acted as a single construct to be influential on the purchase intention.