Merchandising/Marketing/Retailing: Management

Believing in Change: The Role of Implicit Theory on Consumer’s Perception of the Fashion Brand’s CSR Message

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Abstract

Despite accelerating sustainable consumption paradigms and fashion brands’ CSR efforts, the research on how consumers evaluate CSR initiatives according to different brand types is yet to be provided. Our study aims to examine how the brand type (e.g., fast vs. slow fashion) influences the relationships among CSR-brand fit, authenticity, and skepticism, thus improving consumer attitudes toward the brand. Also, based on the implicit theory, how the consumer’s incremental mindset (vs. entity) influences CSR evaluations are studied. Through the online experiment with 204 US participants, our study demonstrates that consumers perceived a higher CSR-brand fit for slow fashion than the fast fashion brand. A higher CSR-brand fit heightened the authenticity and alleviated skepticism, which resulted in the positive evaluation of a brand reputation, attitude, and WOM intentions. Importantly, incremental theorists (vs. entity) perceived a higher CSR-brand fit for the fast fashion brand, but not for a slow fashion brand. 

Keywords: Corporate social responsibility, Implicit theory, Fit, Authenticity, Skepticism

How to Cite:

Kim, T. H. & Kim, N. L., (2022) “Believing in Change: The Role of Implicit Theory on Consumer’s Perception of the Fashion Brand’s CSR Message”, International Textile and Apparel Association Annual Conference Proceedings 79(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.31274/itaa.15903