L15 - Information and Product Quality; Standardization and CompatibilityReturn

The success of sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) depends upon the active support of all stakeholders. Thus, it is highly relevant and becomes the goal of this paper to perform a pilot case study of the negative determinants of readiness of the new Central European generation of financially sufficiently strong consumers to support CSR, in particular, to answer two research questions: (i) which is the prevailing determinant and (ii) whether it is gender-sensitive. Therefore, 53 male and 53 female Generation Z students from a private university in Prague, ready to pay a CSR bonus, were surveyed in the summer of 2021 regarding the negative determinants of their decisions. The collected answers were statistically processed via cross-tabulation and chi-squared test measures, and the dependence between negative determinants and genders was considered to answer both research questions. The data analysis implies four prevailing negative determinants, two of them related to the infodemic, represented differently by male and female members of Generation Z. This leads to propositions linked to prior studies and advancing them in a new direction. Namely, this indicative pilot case study suggests that Generation Z's readiness to support CSR by paying a CSR bonus is eroded by the infodemic and that male members of Generation Z are more sensitive in this respect than female members.
Implications for Central European audience: This article targets the underestimated issue of factors deterring committed young consumers from their support to sustainability via their readiness to pay a CSR bonus. It empirically points out the relevance of proper information and the negative and gender-sensitive impacts of the infodemic. Theoretical implications include a pioneering contribution to the conceptual appreciation, methodological processing and assessment of particular aspects of infodemic and negative CSR determinants for an emerging cohort of Central European consumers. Practical implications include the dramatic importance of enhancement of awareness and practical suggestions regarding how to inform these male and female consumers and engage them in sustainability and CSR.

The paper assesses the perception of clothing products’ quality using two independent samples of Czech respondents answering a questionnaire. It fills the current research gap in revealing how the quality of clothing products is currently perceived by different socio-demographic groups and whether other factors neglected previously (e.g., type of store, store’s trade name, etc.) contribute to the perceived garment quality. The results show that age plays an important role in assessing some of the parameters by which people define whether garments are quality garments. This demographic criterion also influences the intensity of quality consideration when people buy a product, but no statistically significant dependence was found for the intensity of quality consideration when people buy a clothing product. These and other papers’ results may help companies in the clothing industry, and the related sectors better comprehend how different categories of people determine garment quality.
Implications for Central European audience: Businesses active in the apparel and fashion industries may better understand the current preferences of Czech customers regarding their clothing quality perceptions. The results could also be useful for managers in other countries of the Central-European region.