Collaborative Fashion Consumption A Viable Innovative Concept of Sustainable Fashion Consumption? vorgelegt von MBA-International Marketing Samira Iran geb. in Ahvaz, Iran von der Fakultät I - Geistes- und Bildungswissenschaften der Technischen Universität Berlin zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades Doktor der Geisteswissenschaften - Dr. -phil. - genehmigte Dissertation Promotionsausschuss: Vorsitzender: Prof. Dr. Axel Gelfert Gutachter: Prof. Dr. Ulf Schrader Gutachter: Prof. Dr. Martin Müller Tag der wissenschaftlichen Aussprache: 12. September 2018 Berlin 2018 Table of Contents List of publications ...................................................................................................................... 3 Framework ................................................................................................................................. 4 1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 4 2 Conceptual research design and research gaps .................................................................. 5 2.1 Alternative consumption ................................................................................................ 5 2.2 Fashion/clothing ............................................................................................................ 6 2.3 Alternative and collaborative fashion consumption ........................................................ 7 3 Summary of the papers ........................................................................................................ 9 4 Discussion of the methods ................................................................................................. 12 4.1 Applied research methods ........................................................................................... 12 4.2 Applied analytical tools ................................................................................................ 13 5 Discussion of the findings .................................................................................................. 14 5.1 Sustainable fashion ..................................................................................................... 15 5.2 Collaborative fashion consumption .............................................................................. 16 5.3 Sustainability of CFC ................................................................................................... 17 5.4 Drivers influencing consumer acceptance of CFC ....................................................... 19 5.5 Drivers and barriers of CFC from business perspective ............................................... 22 6 Suggestions and recommendations ................................................................................... 22 6.1 Transformative strategies for enabling CFC ................................................................ 22 6.2 Sustaining strategies for CFC businesses ................................................................... 24 7 Summary and outlook ........................................................................................................ 26 8 References ........................................................................................................................ 28 Sustainable fashion – from production to alternative consumption ........................................... 34 Collaborative fashion consumption and its environmental effects ............................................. 58 Collaborative fashion consumption – drivers, barriers and future pathways .............................. 79 To wear or to own? Influences of values on the attitudes toward and the engagement in collaborative fashion consumption ...................................................................................... 106 Collaborative fashion consumption – a cross-cultural study between Tehran and Berlin ........ 117 Appendix 1: questionnaire in German ..................................................................................... 143 Appendix 2: questionnaire in Persian ..................................................................................... 149 2 List of publications (i) Iran, S. (2018), “Sustainable fashion – from production to alternative consumption”, in Schneider, A.M. and Jastram, S. (Eds.), Sustainable Fashion: Governance and New Management Approaches, Springer, pp. 139–159 (Abbreviation: SF). (ii) Iran, S. and Schrader, U. (2017), “Collaborative fashion consumption and its environmental effects”, Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management: An International Journal, Vol. 21 No. 4, pp. 468–482 (Abbreviation: JFMM1). [postprint] (iii) Becker-Leifhold, C. and Iran, S. (2018), “Collaborative fashion consumption drivers, barriers and future pathways”, Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management: An International Journal, Vol. 22 No. 2, pp. 189–208 (Abbreviation: JFMM2). [postprint] (iv) Iran, S. and Geiger, S.M. (2018), “To wear or to own? Influences of values on the attitudes toward and the engagement in collaborative fashion consumption”, in Heuer, M. and Becker-Leifhold, C. (Eds.), Eco Friendly and Fair: Fast Fashion and Consumer Behavior, Routledge, New York, USA, pp. 153–162 (Abbreviation: EFaF). (v) Iran, S., Geiger, S.M., and Schrader, U. (submitted), “Collaborative fashion consumption – a cross-cultural study between Tehran and Berlin”, Journal of Cleaner Production (Abbreviation: IJCS). 3 Framework 1 Introduction Clothing consumption has shifted beyond meeting a basic human need, and it is now, instead, used to satisfy desires. Today, fashion consumption significantly impacts natural and human resources (Quantis and ClimateWorks, 2018). Overconsumption of clothing is among the main issues of this industry: On average, each person consumes about 11.4kg of clothing a year and this consumption results in the production of 442kg CO2-eq emissions per capita, which equals the emission produced by driving a car 1,500mi (Quantis and ClimateWorks, 2018). It has been emphasized that the reduction of disposed textiles is the greatest economic and environmental opportunity regarding clothing and textiles (Bartlett et al., 2013). Alternative or Collaborative Fashion Consumption (CFC), as an innovative concept could help to reduce material overconsumption in the current fashion industry. CFC is defined as a consumption trend “in which consumers, instead of buying new fashion products, have access to already existing garments either through alternative opportunities to acquire individual ownership (gifting, swapping, or secondhand) or through usage options for fashion products owned by others (sharing, lending, renting, or leasing)” (Iran and Schrader, 2017, p. 472). This definition is similar to the one proposed by Joyner Armstrong and Park (2017) except that they emphasize only on online peer sharing practices. CFC is not a new concept; It has traditionally been practiced along with other forms of sharing, such as tool sharing. Clothing has been a part of secondhand markets, and costume renting has been a form of business for decades. What makes CFC nowadays an interesting topic of research mainly is that the technological advancements have decreased transaction costs and facilitated sharing practices via digital platforms (Barnes and Mattsson, 2016). People can share a broad range of products and services with strangers who are living in another neighborhood, city or even country. When it comes to sharing, geographical distances, today, are not as important as they were in the past. Nonetheless, clothing is so inexpensive, especially in developed countries, that it is no longer convenient for consumers to use secondhand clothing. Besides, hygiene and health concerns, lack of trust, information and ownership, and consumption habits present barriers to CFC (Becker-Leifhold and Iran, 2018). Research on CFC is still in its initial phase. This dissertation is dedicated to shedding some light on this topic of research. In this regard, the concept of collaborative and alternative fashion is theoretically and practically studied from the viewpoint of consumers and consumption. The main objectives of this research consist of: 4 Exploring, defining and positioning the CFC concept: What makes CFC an interesting topic of research, and how could it contribute to sustainable fashion? Finding the drivers and barriers of acceptance or rejection of the CFC: Why are consumers or businesses open to adopting the CFC concept (or not)? Exploring the effect of values on acceptance or rejection of the CFC: How can different values (biospheric, altruistic, hedonist, egoistic) influence the attitudes toward and the engagement with CFC? Exploring the CFC in a cross-cultural context: How do consumers from different cultures differ in acceptance of CFC and their behavioral drivers regarding CFC? In the following sections, a brief overview of the conceptual research design and existing research gaps is initially presented. Then, all five papers of this cumulative thesis are summarily introduced. This is followed by a discussion of the methods and the findings of the papers. Then, suggestions and recommendations are briefly elaborated in the sixth section. The framework is finally finished by an outlook and a summary section. In the following text, publications’ abbreviations (SF, JFMM1, JFMM2, EFaF, IJCS) are used to distinguish the papers of this cumulative thesis from other references. The citation style of these