Scale Development of Sustainable Consumption of Clothing Products

Abstract

Researchers and companies are paying attention to consumers’ sustainable consumption of clothing products. Clothing industry and fashion consumers have been criticized for a long time due to endless mass production and overconsumption. Despite the efforts of corporations to use sustainability as a marketing tool and an expanding literature exploring consumers’ response to such marketing, the definition of sustainable consumption of clothing products (SCCP) remains unclear. Academic works lack comprehensive discussions regarding SCCP in the perspective of consumers’ awareness and behavior. Furthermore, no widely accepted measurement tool of this concept exists. The validated measurement instrument will eventually help the diagnosing of the mental and behavior status of clothing consumers’ SCCP and further support to establish consumer guidance aimed at resolving sustainability issues related clothing consumption. This study aimed to conceptualize, develop and validate a scale to measure SCCP from the perspective of general clothing consumers. Literature review and interview were used to collect qualitative data for scale item generation. Then, surveys were conducted two times to acquire quantitative data from respondents to purify and validate the scale items. Content analysis, exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis using MPlus were used to explore and predict the data. Based on reliability and validity check, the results are apparent that the scale shows good psychometric properties.