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2. Theory – Literature Review

2.1. Fast fashion

Fast fashion is a word used to describe products that are created fast to be delivered to
stores and sold to customers. It is inspired by the newest fashion trends. The target
market for Fast Fashion consists of young people who always have a sense of style and
follow "trends" like H&M, UNIQLO, Zara, GAP, Forever 21, Topshop, Esprit, Primark,
Fashion Nova, and New Look are significant brands in the fast fashion industry. Fast
fashion also has been criticized for creating a "throw-away" mentality even while it
benefits customers. Because of this, it is also referred to as disposable fashion. The target
market for the fast fashion industry, young adults in their teens and early twenties, admits
that they rarely wear the clothes they buy. Critics argue that fast fashion contributes to
pollution, and waste due to the cheap materials and production methods it uses. Fast
fashion's detractors claim that because of the low-cost materials and production
techniques it employs, it adds to waste and pollution. Poor-quality clothing ages quickly
yet cannot be recycled because it is mostly (more than 60%) comprised of synthetic
materials. They will end up in landfills after being abandoned. As a result, it is said that
the fashion business is the second most polluted in the world after the oil industry,
jeopardizing the resources of our planet.

2.2. Intention to purchase products of fast fashion:

According to (Chien et al., 2018), impulsiveness, which directly influences purchase

intentions, is the root cause of impulse buying. As a result, the perceived quality of the
products is not a factor in this phenomenon. Additionally, customers are more likely to
intend to buy products from a firm when they believe its social responsibility to be
genuine (Kang & Hustvedt, 2014). Customers' purchasing intentions for the brands'
sustainable apparel products will also be influenced by their general perception of fast
fashion companies.

2.3. Theory of Perceived quality

The degree to which a product meets its functions, given the needs of the consumer, is the
typical definition of perceived quality (KOTLER, 1984). Consumer needs are taken into
consideration while making quality judgments. According to the principle of trait
activation, personality traits manifest as responses to situational signals that are relevant
to those traits. Young customers' needs for fashion involvement and impulse buying are
influenced by fast fashion product features. Consumers are more concerned with their
style and appearance as well as the pursuit of stylish items, especially apparel, as seen by
the association between perceived quality by haptic perception such as some fast fashion
brands like Zara and H&M. (Louise Lundblad, 2016). According to the theories of
"perceived quality," there are two studies that support these claims: “Perceived quality of
food products and its relationship to consumer preferences: theory and measurement”
(STEENKAMP, 1986); and “Perceived quality, emotions, and behavioral intentions:
Application of an extended Mehrabian–Russell model to restaurants” (Jang & Namkung,
2009). Customers are more likely to care about the quality of fast fashion products and
spend more time analyzing product quality, therefore perceived quality makes sense.

2.4. Corporate social responsibility theory

CSR means that companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business
operations and in their interaction with their stakeholders on a voluntary basis. The
economic, environmental, stakeholder, social, and voluntariness elements make up the
CSR construct (Dahlsrud, 2008). As a result, CSR is increasingly being recognized as a
crucial component of global brand strategy through SCG in the fast fashion sector.
Furthermore, although altruistic CSR may hinder company performance growth, strategic
CSR encourages it. CSR of companies or brands (D’Astous & Legendre, 2009; Kang &
Hustvedt, 2014), or socially responsible consumer behavior (Valor, 2007; Wesley et al.,
2012), addresses both social and environmental challenges.
It is essential to a company's overall strategy and refers to this company's point of view. It
has to do with seeking out advantages for both the company and society (Keys & van der
Graaf, 2009). Some well-known fast fashion firms have started to understand how their
reputation and benefits are directly impacted by the CSR performance of their partners,
such as suppliers and manufacturers. The studies: “Building Trust Between Consumers
and Corporations: The Role of Consumer Perceptions of Transparency and Social
Responsibility” (Kang & Hustvedt, 2014); and “The Role of Perceived Consumer
Effectiveness and Motivational Attitude on Socially Responsible Purchasing Behavior in
South Korea” (Wesley et al., 2012) are in line with the claims of "Corporate social
responsibility theory". Numerous studies indicate that customers are eager to support
socially conscious businesses (Barone et al., 2000). The relationship between consumers
and companies is influenced by the consumers' subjective assessment of the company's
behavior, regarding what it openly communicates within its corporate social
responsibility efforts, as well as unobserved intentions. Corporate social responsibility
activities have a positive impact on firms in terms of customer satisfaction (Kitchin,
2003). This shows that the influence of customer opinions on a company's social
responsibility should not be disregarded and that it is further tied to general consumer
perceptions of a company (Kang & Hustvedt, 2014).

3. Hypotheses development

3.1. Trust (TT) and General Attitude (AT)

Trust is defined as confidence in the reliability and integrity of an exchange partner,

which is connected to consistency, honesty, fairness, accountability, helpfulness, and
compassion (Morgan & Hunt, 1994). Trust in a brand further means consumers believe
the brand’s actions to be motivated by positive intentions toward their welfare (Munuera-
Aleman et al., 2003). Brand authenticity and brand trust have a positive relationship
(Schallehn et al., 2014). Additionally, trust is a key indicator of successful marketing
outcomes including loyalty, customer retention, and buy intention. As a result, it is
crucial for businesses to build trusting relationships with their customers. Furthermore,
trust has a significant impact on how customers perceive the charitable motivations
behind a company's CSR initiatives (Kang & Hustvedt, 2014). Consumers now have both
the sustainable and traditional options when it comes to sustainable fashion. They must
determine whether the claim of a sustainable product is accurate, though. Consumers still
frequently believe that a label indicating a product's environmental sustainability is
"simply another green label" used by the brand to command a higher price or a publicity
stunt, commonly known as "perceptions of greenwashing" (Kang & Hustvedt, 2014;
Ritch, 2015). This viewpoint emphasizes the value of trust even more. In accordance with
(Kang & Hustvedt, 2014), we expect to be applicable to the case of logic will apply to the
fast fashion consumption industry as well and think that consumers' opinions of these
businesses' social responsibility will have a big impact on both their general attitudes and
their trust in these brands, which leads to the following hypotheses:

H1. Social responsibility perceptions of the fast fashion industry's efforts have a positive
impact on customers' attitudes in general.

H2. Social responsibility perceptions of the fast fashion industry's efforts have a positive
impact on customer trust.

3.4. Perceptions of social responsibility and perceived consumer effectiveness (PCE)

Social responsibility likely has a positive impact on consumers' general attitudes of fast
fashion brands. It is suggested that perceived consumer efficacy has a favorable impact
on purchase intention. Although it is encouraged to measure perceived consumer efficacy
separately from consumer attitude, the two are nevertheless tightly associated. This led us
to further investigate if social responsibility could be linked to perceived consumer
effectiveness since when customers positively perceive a brand's sustainability efforts,
this will increase their sense of empowerment (Neumann et al., 2021). In light of this, we
propose this hypothesis:

H3. Perceived consumer effectiveness is positively influenced by consumers' perceptions

of the fast fashion brands' social responsibility.
3.2. Customer personality characteristic (CPC)

According to the principle of trait activation, personality traits are exhibited as responses
to situational signals that are relevant to the trait (Flight et al., 2012). Previous studies
investigated how customer personality traits affected how much fashion consumers
bought (Saran et al., 2016; Valaei & Nikhashemi, 2017). In general, fashion-oriented
impulsive buying is sparked by newly released brands and fashion trends that consumers
wish to purchase (Park et al., 2012; Valaei & Nikhashemi, 2017) or it is striggered by low
prices, which prompts consumers to make an intuitive decision (Majumdar, 2010). The
majority of fast fashion buyers, according to (Joy et al., 2012), are under the age of 28.
Young customers' requirements for fashion engagement and impulse buying behavior are
influenced by fast fashion product qualities (Muzinich et al., 2003; Park et al., 2012;
Valaei & Nikhashemi, 2017). There is, however, a research gap regarding potential
mediators, such as perceived quality and sensory domination on decision-making, which
are of special importance in this study because of the interaction between general attitude
and the fast fashion consumption sector. Additionally, the impact of fashion involvement
on purchasing intentions is moderated by general attitude. To explain these relationships,
we put forth the following theory:

H4. The impact of fashion involvement on purchase intentions is mediated by general

attitude

3.3. Purchase intention

The intention of a person to behave in a particular way can be described by their attitudes
toward behavior, their perceptions of social pressure, and their judgments of how difficult
the behavior is (Kang et al., 2013). We will study purchase intention as one manifestation
of behavioral intention in our empirical environment, the Fast fashion sector. Customers
are more likely to intend to buy products from a firm when they believe its social
responsibility to be trustworthy (Kang & Hustvedt, 2014). Additionally, according to the
current authors, personality traits like impulsiveness(Chien et al., 2018), which is brought
on by intuitive sensibility and takes the ELM's peripheral pathway, are the root causes of
impulsive buying (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). So, we postulate that consumers' general
attitudes regarding the fast fashion consumption industry will also influence their
propensity to buy sustainable apparel from those brands:

H5. Consumers' general attitudes toward the fast fashion business positively impact their
purchase intention.

As previously hypothesized, social responsibility affects consumers' general attitudes as

well as their trust in businesses to uphold their social responsibility commitments, which
in our case take the form of sustainable clothing lines. Consumer general attitudes are
positively correlated with purchase intention. According to logic, trust should be related
to the purchase intention:

H6. Consumers' purchase intentions are positively influenced by their trust in the fast
fashion consumption industry products.

3.5. Environmental concern and perceived consumer effectiveness

The ability of a consumer to influence environmental resource issues is measured by their

perception of their own effectiveness as consumers. It has often been shown that
perceived consumer effectiveness affects consumers' purchase intention and consumer
behavior (Antonetti & Maklan, 2014; Kang et al., 2013). It is a significant predictor of
environmentally conscious purchasing behavior in a variety of industries (Lee et al.,
2014; Vermeir & Verbeke, 2008), including the fashion sector (Kang et al., 2013). It's
also important to distinguish between perceived consumer effectiveness and the idea of
self-efficacy, which is the conviction that one can plan and carry out the actions
necessary to achieve specified goals (Antonetti & Maklan, 2014). Additionally, perceived
consumer effectiveness outperforms environmental concern, which is defined as a
person's general disposition towards the environment, as a predictor of environmentally
conscious consumer behavior (Kim & Choi, 2005). We believe that perceived consumer
effectiveness and environmental concern go hand in hand because perceived consumer
effectiveness is a belief in and of itself, and environmental concern is related to beliefs as
well (Antonetti & Maklan, 2014). However, for the reasons mentioned, we will place a
stronger emphasis on perceived customer effectiveness. According to (Kang et al., 2013),
we contend that customers are more inclined to buy sustainable clothing and help address
environmental problems if they believe their individual purchases matter. As a result, we
surmise that:

H7. Perceived consumer effectiveness will positively affect customers' intentions to

purchase products from the fast fashion consumption industry products.

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