MFIS, Kent State University, 2021, College of the Arts / School of Fashion

Fashion renting, a form of collaborative consumption, is an emerging sustainable business model that extends the product life cycle and minimizes waste garments. Fashion renting has been the topic of interest for multiple studies, and as a result, the current fashion discipline possesses a substantial understanding of the factors that encourage consumers to engage in fashion renting. A limitation, however, is that relatively little attention has been placed on consumers who do not engage in fashion renting. This is an important gap in research especially considering the fact that understanding non-users of products or services often lead to valuable and distinct implications. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to investigate both the user and non-user groups of fashion renting services to obtain a better understanding of the phenomenon. Specifically, two separate focus group interviews for users and non-users are conducted. The interview results are then converted into a survey questionnaire and distributed via Amazon Mechanical Turk. Factor Analysis and MANOVA are conducted to explore whether different sets of factors drive consumers' decision to use or not use fashion renting services. The findings of this study provide meaningful results for fashion researchers as well as practitioners.

Committee: Jonghan Hyun, Ph.D. (Advisor); Jihyun Kim-Vick, Ph.D. (Committee Member); Aryn Karpinski, Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Behavioral Sciences; Business Administration; Entrepreneurship; Marketing; Sustainability; Textile Research

MA, Kent State University, 2016, College of the Arts / School of Art

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship among consumers' consumption values and their intention to shop fashion products at an online retailer using mobile apps, and also to investigate their intention to shop at the same retailers' offline extensions. To examine the relationship among these variables, this study adopted the consumption value theory (Sheth, Newman, & Gross, 1991). A sample was collected from 398 online consumers in China's four cities provided usable reposes to this study. The results revealed that perceived emotional value were the most important factor influenced consumers' intention to shop at an online retailer using mobile apps. Specifically, perceived convenience, monetary, and conditional values significantly influenced consumers' intention to shop at an online retailer using mobile apps. Contrary to expectations, the social and epistemic values did not have a significant effect on intention to shop at an online retailer using mobile apps. Findings also suggested that consumers' intention to shop at an online retailer using mobile apps and the intention to shop at the retailer's offline extension were showed a significant positive relationship. This study provides empirical evidence of the potential of mobile shopping apps usage among the Chinese online consumers.

Committee: Jihyun Kim (Advisor); Jonghan Hyun (Advisor); Tuo Wang (Committee Member) Subjects: Behavioral Psychology; Behavioral Sciences; Behaviorial Sciences; Business Administration