The Impact of Utilitarian and Hedonistic Shopping Values on Sustainable Fashion Consumption: The Moderating Role of Religiosity

Abstract

The present study aims to elaborate whether sustainable fashion consumption is characterized by emotions or rational thinking and how religiosity influences the motive for the consumers to get involved in sustainable consumption behaviour. A mall intercept survey sampling technique was employed in a large metropolitan area of Pakistan. All scales were adapted from extant literature. It was found out that sustainable fashion is more of a utilitarian aspect of clothing than a hedonistic aspect of clothing. Moreover, religiosity has a strong moderating influence on the relationship between utilitarian and hedonistic shopping values and sustainable fashion consumption. The present study has significant implications for fashion retailers in the developing countries as they need to incorporate sustainability aspects into their production processes more so because developing countries encounter severe mismanagement or scarcity of natural resources. The present study is one of the preliminary researches to investigate sustainable fashion consumption patterns of consumers with distinct disparity between the underlying motives of consumption either catering to utilitarian functions or gratifying hedonistic purposes. Another novelty is examining the moderating impact that religiosity would have on hedonic and utilitarian shopping values towards shaping sustainable behaviour.