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The purpose of this paper is to explore factors important to the product choice stage of the decision‐making process for the men's branded underwear consumer.

A qualitative approach to data collection and interpretation was used. Individual in‐depth interviews were conducted with fifteen participants who had purchased men's branded underwear within six months prior to the study. Eight males and seven females, aged 23‐55, were given a voucher to purchase men's underwear at a designated US department store and asked to bring their purchases to the interview. A semi‐structured interview schedule was followed which posed open‐ended questions about purchasing men's branded underwear in general and specifically with regard to the use of the voucher. Interviews were audio recorded with participant's consent and lasted approximately 45‐60 min.

A thematic interpretation of the interview data led to the development of three emergent thematic areas used to explore issues that surfaced within and across responses. Factors important to participants' decision‐making are discussed relative to their product choices. A typology of consumer profiles was developed from the data based on involvement level, brand loyalty, gender, evaluative criteria and silhouette preference.

Limitations of the study include a focus on perceptions of US consumers located in a large urban area and a focus on the department store channel. Implications of participants' experiences for marketing men's branded underwear are considered.

This study provides insight into factors important to US consumers when purchasing men's branded underwear.

This paper offers an examination of consumer decision‐making relative to men's branded underwear, an understudied product category. Findings provide an in‐depth understanding of the consumer's perspective, an understanding that is essential to successful product development and brand positioning.

The purpose of this paper is to determine if high versus low ethnocentric consumers differ in their attitudes toward buying domestic and foreign brands of underwear that are made domestically or in foreign countries.

Australian residents recruited through a mall intercept participated in this study through a self‐completed questionnaire. Fishbein's Multi‐Attribute model was used as the measure, along with repeated‐measures ANOVA and t‐tests, to examine whether the groups differed in their attitudes toward buying underwear with “Made in Australia”, “Made in the USA”, and “Made in China” labels.

The findings generally indicated that there is no significant difference between high and low ethnocentric consumers in attitude towards underwear that are made in Australia and the USA. On the other hand, high ethnocentric consumers viewed domestically made and branded underwear as more durable, easier to care for, better priced, more colourful, more attractive, more fashionable, of stronger brand name, more appropriate for occasions, and more choices of styles. Domestically‐made but foreign‐branded underwear is viewed as easier to care for and better priced.

The study suggests that China should improve its country image as compared to such developed nations as Australia and the USA in terms of production and manufacturing standards. The study also purports that American underwear brands with strong presence in the global fashion world that have not already established operation in Australia can consider entering the market.

The paper fills the gap in the ethnocentrism literature by validating the study in Australia and focusing on the attitudes of high ethnocentric (and low ethnocentric) consumers. It also examines underwear, which is a common product category in apparels but inherently deficient in the literature.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the fit and thermal and moisture comfort factors to provide some reference value for the functional design of underwear.

The body size data of 100 male youths are measured to analyze the body shape of the lower body. Based on the complete body size, the authors selected the matching underwear, and obtained the relevant data for the mathematical model of thermal and moisture using Grey correlation analysis method.

In allusion to the defect of fit comfort and thermal-moisture comfort of the crotch, this paper presented a mathematical model, and experimental results showed that breathable fabric and breathable volume are the key factors.

It was clarified that which is the key to the thermal and moisture comfort. At the same time, male lower body characteristics index is clear.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of actual and ideal congruity in predicting the repurchase intentions of young women in relation to inconspicuous fashion items.

The research focussed on a non-luxury intimate apparel brand, typical of daily use and private consumption. Regression analyses were conducted on a sample of 308 young female consumers to identify the effect of actual and ideal congruity in determining repurchase intentions. A cluster analysis based on actual self-concept was employed to develop a typology for consumers.

Unexpectedly, the findings revealed that ideal congruity is a stronger predictor of repurchase intentions than actual congruity. Further, based on actual self-concept, three profiles of young women emerged: active romantics, self-assureds and reliables. The clusters differed in relation to perceptions of brand personality and the effect of self-congruity on repurchase intentions.

This study was conducted using participants from one university in Northern Italy. Thus, the main limitations of this study relate to sample size and selection. Additionally, this study only investigated the perceptions of young women.

This study suggests that non-luxury intimate apparel items, typical of daily use, are not merely functional purchases, but reflect young women’s self-expression motives. Accordingly, fashion marketers should focus on consumers’ ideal self-concepts to develop effective promotion strategies. Further, specific dimensions of brand personality should be considered in relation to the different clusters.

This study shows that repurchase intentions towards inconspicuous non-luxury fashion items are explained more by self-esteem motives (i.e. ideal congruity) than self-consistency motives (i.e. actual congruity).

Despite the existence of some research into habitual behavior, there is a noticeable lack of investigation into its determinants. Since the only influential factor generally discussed is brand awareness, our study includes other factors in order to provide a complete understanding of the determinants of habitual behavior. We consider the influence of various marketing and demographic factors on consumers’ habitual behavior towards national and leading brands of low involvement products in mainland China. A conceptual model is proposed and logistic regression used to analyze data on southwestern China, with the results indicating that all four marketing factors, brand awareness, perceived quality, channel convenience and price, exert significant influences on habitual behavior. The results further suggest some discernible demographic features of habitual buyers. Marketing implications are also discussed, highlighting in particular, the association between “satisfaction” and “channel convenience”, which is clearly demonstrated as the critical determinant for retaining leading brand consumers.

This paper aims to investigate how the relationships among the different actors within the business networks affect the evolution of innovation along the different steps of technology life cycle.

The study is supported by a longitudinal case study referred to a mechanical company operating in the knitting machineries industry. A triangulation method integrating multiple data sources in a multiple method design was used to gather data.

The longitudinal study supports the idea that interactions among the actors within the business networks heavily influence the technology evolution.

Although the longitudinal case study reported in this paper refers to a period of time of about 10 years, our findings refer only to a single case study in a specific sector and so they cannot be generalized.

This paper provides important guidelines on how to manage the relationships emerging within a business network to influence the new technologies development.

The paper contributes to business networks literature, filling the gaps about how the relationships among the actors involved in a network can evolve over time and influence the evolution of technology in itself.

The learning outcomes of this paper is as follows: understand the issues that faced private Egyptian textile producers following the January 2011 revolution and how that impacted their business model. Evaluate whether Dice’s inorganic expansion through acquiring Alex Clothing Company is a sound strategic decision given the economic uncertainty in Egypt. Analyze the acquisition decision through projection evaluation techniques, including net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR) and modified IRR (MIRR), to measure whether the acquisition will add value to Dice. Discuss non-financial issues post-acquisition that are not captured by traditional capital budgeting and project evaluation techniques.

Dice Manufacturing Company, an established and successful textile manufacturing family business, is facing an important investment decision with regard to inorganic expansion through the acquisition of Alex Clothing Company and its subsidiary United Dyers. The case is intended to be discussed in an undergraduate corporate finance class. The case setting is inside Dice Manufacturing Company, where one of the founders, Nagy Toma and his CFO Victor ElMalek are analyzing the acquisition decision in January 2015. The protagonist is Victor ElMalek, who has to recommend a course of action for the company owners. The case allows students to apply capital budgeting and project valuation methods to make a decision on whether the acquisition brings value to Dice and to analyze issues management can face post-acquisition. The case follows through the history of Dice, presenting its business model and changes that accompanied the 2011 revolution. It then moves on to outline the acquisition opportunity and provides data for students to analyze through traditional project valuation techniques, including NPV, IRR and MIRR.

Undergraduate.

CSS 1: Accounting and Finance.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

Given an increasingly volatile and competitive fashion environment, the purpose of this paper is to qualitatively explore current consumer behaviour and psychological perspectives of luxury in women's undergarment fashion purchasing, with specific examination of whether this under‐investigated area of discrete or inconspicuous fashion appraisal is consistent with other luxury purchases.

The study employs an interesting methodological approach using multiple qualitative techniques including research interviews, group forums, and narrative capture, to investigate women's undergarment purchasing in a changing fashion environment in relation to the issues of branding, self‐image, perceived self‐image, motivational perspectives, and consumer behaviour, as identified by 119 female consumers aged between 18 and 60.

This study supports in part previous research that indicated consumer behaviour is determined by the congruency between the consumer's self‐image and the consumer's image of brands, although early research suggested this only applied to conspicuous products and social consumption. The current study confirms the self‐image link in the area of inconspicuous fashion, and strongly relates inconspicuous products consumed privately to self‐esteem and perceived sexy self.

The findings indicate that for intimate apparel marketing to be effective and credible, the marketed fashion items, and actions taken by designers, and retailers need to be consistent with the consumer's personal style, value perceptions, and self‐image.

This research examines several neglected areas in fashion and consumption research, and contributes to our understanding of key motivational elements important in the consumption of inconspicuous fashion, and the relationship of self‐image to inconspicuous consumption.

This paper aims to investigate cross-gender effects of gender stereotypes in advertising. More specifically, it proposes that the negative effects found in studies of women’s reactions to stereotyped female portrayals should hold across gender portrayal and target audience gender.

In two experimental studies, the effects of stereotyped portrayals (vs non-stereotyped portrayals) across gender are compared.

The results show that advertising portrayals of women and men have a presumed negative influence on others, leading to higher levels of ad reactance, which has a negative impact on brand-related effects across model and participant gender, and for gender stereotypes in terms of physical characteristics and roles.

Whereas previous studies have focused on reactions of women to female stereotypes, the current paper suggests that women and men alike react negatively to stereotyped portrayals of other genders.

The results indicate that marketers can benefit from adapting a more mindful approach to the portrayals of gender used in advertising.

The addition of a cross-gender perspective to the literature on gender stereotypes in advertising is a key contribution to this literature.