The antecedens of green skepticism in the fashion fetail sector

Green marketing has gained great attention within the literature. However, with people’s increasing concern for environmental issues and their soaring demand for eco-friendly products, their skepticism towards products promoted as green rises too. Hence, the investigation of green skepticism (GS) in a closer context is needed. Research on green skepticism is growing, nevertheless there is still a necessity for empirical studies on the antecedents of consumers’ green skepticism. Thus, this study examines the antecedents of green skepticism in the fashion retail sector. The study tests the impact of seven possible antecedents on green skepticism (GS). The hypothesized antecedents are information utility (IU), green labels (GL), green concern (GC), green trust (GT), CSR beliefs (CSR), green history (GH) and green norm (GN). First, a literature review is done to provide an overview of the topic and existing findings. Further, to collect primary data an online consumer survey was chosen as appropriate quantitative research method for the empirical study of this master thesis. 220 survey answers are going to be used for the data analysis, gathered from participants between 16 and 45 years. The data analysis is conducted with partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The empirical results identified a company’s green history and consumers’ green trust as antecedents of green skepticism in the fashion retail sector. This means, the longer a company’s green history and the higher consumers’ green trust, the lower consumers’ skepticism towards fashion advertised as green. These findings contribute to existing literature. In addition, this master thesis demonstrates new directions for future studies on consumers’ green skepticism.