ABSTRACT
Consumers seem to be increasingly concerned with the social and environmental impact of their purchasing decisions expressing a higher willingness to consume fashion in a more ethical way. The growing number of boycotts against fashion brands’ unethical conducts are likely to indicate an increasing interest in the way businesses behave and a possible shift towards more ethical consumption. Despite consumers’ ethical claims and their positive attitude, they continue repeating their traditional behavior in the marketplace, hence ignoring the role of ethics. Consequently, consumers’ words are seldom translated into their actual deeds, which leads to the attitude-behavior gap often referred to in extant literature. Most of the studies in this field are mainly concentrated on the formation of ethical purchase intentions oversimplifying the complex transition process from intentions to actions. This chapter examines the misalignment between consumers’ attitudes and behavior reviewing the factors that cause the gap. The factors are presented in a synthesized model and categorized into product-related and consumer-related factors that either drive or impede ethical fashion consumption. The paper creates an important source that can be used by ethical fashion brands, policy makers, practitioners and researchers to understand the variety of factors underlying the attitude-behavior gap; and hence can serve as an important foundation for future studies in this field.
