Outlook of the Application of Blockchain Technology on Fashion Collaborative Consumption from a Qualitative Perspective
Introduction
The rise of the collaborative consumption is recognized as the product of the transformation and development of internet technology which gave birth to and developed a new consumption culture and trend. It is regarded as an effective method to solve the idle goods produced by excessive production and consumption, and a new way to solve the problem of resource recovery and contributor to promote the sustainable development of fashion (Lang & Armstrong, 2018; Lofthouse & Prendeville, 2018). However, the further development of collaborative fashion consumption has been restricted by the asymmetry of user information within the online trading platform and the difficulty in establishing an effective trust mechanism. Blockchain technology is expected to address many of the problems in the above online trading scenarios, monitoring sustainability concept advocated by the fashion industry. This technology possesses the characteristics of decentralisation, information storage, non-tampering, and information traceability, which can promote the exchange of information value and the development of collaborative consumption patterns. The literature on this proposal mainly focuses on elaborating on the existing literature, model construction, sample acquisition and mechanism analysis. The project seeks to offer a future-oriented discussion to highlight the importance of technology in accelerating the development of collaborative consumption.
Research background / rationale (explaining the need and motivation for the study)
Development of Collaborative Consumption in the Fashion Industry
The expected goal of the fashion industry is to create an economy in harmony with the environment and society (Vehmas, Raudaskoski, Heikkila, Harlin & Mensonen, 2018). Collaborative consumption is a community-based point-to-point (P2P) network behaviour model, which is considered as a new trend of sustainable consumption (Dabrowska & Gutkowska, 2015) and is the result of Internet technology, sustainable development and consumption. Through P2P market, collaborative consumption can be achieved by sharing its fully utilized resources to consumers in need through the platform, so as to obtain economic and emotional benefits. As a sustainable way of consumption in the Internet era, collaborative consumption has been paid more and more attention by people. According to PWC’s Report on the growth of the sharing Economy, collaborative consumption is expected to reach $335 billion by 2025 (PWC 2020). Therefore, the idle resources in people’s hands are transformed into new employment opportunities for people to improve the utilization rate of assets and resources and to acquire new network communities, which has become a new pro-environment transaction method in the Internet era. Given the significant impact of collaborative consumption on consumer behaviour, collaborative consumption in the fashion industry seems promising. Therefore, collaborative consumption patterns should be seen as a research and practice agenda for the future that can evolve into mainstream fashion.
Obstacles to the Expansion of Collaborative Consumption
While new business models are reshaping our economies and consumption concepts, our understanding of preservation and collaboration as complex, multifaceted entities is still in its infancy, limiting the collaborative consumption foothold in the fashion mainstream (Lang and Armstrong, 2018;). The greatest influences on the expansion of the fashion industry are the current social economy and environment, which encompasses consumers’ acceptance and adoption of emerging economies or concepts and the inherent concept of trust.
Fashion has been widely studied as a cultural product which has a more complex emotional connection with an individual. Clothing is a material-intensive and labour-intensive product, with material dependence and expressive features, creating a sense of exclusiveness of personal ownership (Belk, 2015; Crane & Bovone, 2006; Kleine, Kleine & Allen, 1995). This psychology directly reduces consumers recognition of collaborative consumption patterns. Lang and Armstrong (2018) suggested that the negative effects of materialism encourage consumers to engage in collaborative consumption. However, the existing research focuses on behaviour intention rather than behaviour change, which was considerably less predictive and comprehensive when studying longitudinal behaviour change from a future agenda perspective. While emphasising the importance of community interaction and the application of network technology, Piscicelli et al. (2015) studied how consumer values affect consumers’ acceptance and adoption and diffusion of rental clothes from the perspective of social psychology. This seemed to be an innovative approach to take adapting to fast technological changes. They evaluated the possibility of resolving differences in consumer values. Simultaneously, research has shown to respond to the challenges of consumer accepting rental fashion such as lack of trust in the provider (Armstrong et al., 2015), trust in the quality of clothing (Lee & Chow, 2020) and trust in new technologies and e-commerce (Pavlou, 2003). This seemed to be feasible from an empirical point of view. As a psychological mechanism, trust is of great significance to the construction of the business ecology and value network in the internet environment and is the basis of good social relations and market transactions.
The feasibility of blockchain technology application
“Blockchain” builds trust in a decentralised way, includes the characteristics of point-to-point decentralisation, information storage, non-tampering, and information traceability (Sikorski, Haughton & Kraft, 2017; Zheng et al, 2018). That is, a blockchain is a distributed ledger that provides information to be recorded and shared. Therefore, blockchain technology seems to promote the exchange of information, achieve transaction equivalence and the development of collaborative consumption.
Reijers et al, believed that the innovation of blockchain technology is not realized the anonymous transfer of data, but the Question Assignment all the transaction information, and the information is true and reliable. The fashion industry has begun to explore the application value of blockchains, such as brand transparency, information sercurity and product traceability (Fu et al., 2018). For example, Nike implemented Cryptokicks to trace product ownership, bridging the gap between the blockchain network and commerce. In addition, LVMH adopted Aura Technology to increase the transparency of the industrial chain and solve the problem of counterfeit goods by tracing transportation and raw materials. Moreover, by improving the life cycle of clothing manufacturing, individuals can track blockchain clothing carbon emissions, which can help them to make consumption decisions. Furthermore, blockchain provides a link between companies and individuals to recycle clothing more effectively. Blockchain technology can change the interaction between consumers and fashion by providing incentives for collaborative consumption, such as carbon allowances or other benefits to encourage individual efforts in environmental protection. This kind of incentive method has been applied in many fields to realise sustainable development.
Theory Development
Self-determination theory seems likely to provide a more comprehensive view of consumer behaviour, in particular, that an individual’s participation in certain activities is driven by both external and internal motivations (Richard & Deci, 2000; Gagne & Deci, 2005; Legault, 2017). External motivation asserts that consumers maximise consumption costs in order to obtain the maximum benefits in the process of consumption, such as the expected income maximisation. Internal motivation refers to a person’s satisfaction with improving interpersonal relationships with others, for example, the level of trust in the market. Self-determination theory states that consumer path dependency is based on prior knowledge of new products, therefore, personal memory of new product associations are the basis for influencing consumers to buy new products (Punj & Staelin, 1983). Accepting the predictive value of a “new” form of consumption is particularly important for changing consumer choices and influencing behaviour.
Problem Statement
The literature review shows that, under the collaborative consumption model is significant to the development of sustainable fashion and changing consumer consumption concepts. The factors that hinder the development of collaborative consumption are also discussed above. However, the research on consumer perception regarding the acceptance and adoption of collaborative consumption is not comprehensive enough for this area. While previous studies consider normative influences, they lack external clues to infer a person’s behavioural intention. These external influences may include environmental and economic factors. The research method in exploring behavioural intention was not sufficient to help to transform consumer perceptions into actions and could not promote change in consumer concepts and behaviours. Many studies introduce trust as a factor which influence consumer cognition, however, there is insufficient exploration on how to address the issue of mutual trust in collaborative consumption. Moreover, the previous research does not consider collaborative consumption as an interactive network-based phenomenon, while the application of current technological innovation in fashion was also ignored when exploring rental behaviours.
Therefore, when considering consumer concepts in the current era, social culture and technological conditions, the psychological mechanism of consumers and the external factors influencing their psychological mechanism are considered in the research scope. This paper assumes that the problems preventing collaborative consumption from entering the mainstream market can be resolved through technical tools and we expect to borrow the principles of blockchain technology to address consumers’ trust problems.
Research Aims and Objectives
From the perspective of consumers, the project aims to understand the problems faced by collaborative consumption in the “revolution” of new technology and sustainable concepts of fashion, explore the process of dynamic behaviour change of consumers, and promote the development of collaborative consumption. It highlights the new consumption patterns of collaborative consumption with blockchain implications. By adopting a consumer-based approach and integrating psychological theories with technology, the project charts a new path for future research into collaborative consumption and accelerate sustainable development.
Research questions:
1. What is consumer trust in relation to digital platforms being used in fashion?
2. To what extent can a revolution of new technology and sustainable fashion change the psychological mechanism of consumers and promote collaborative consumption?
Problem statement
As a new business model and technology phenomenon, CC has brought the great potential for fashion. Previous studies have analysed the development and practicability of CC, but its application in the fashion industry has certain one-sidedness. Less attention has been paid to consumer reactions to this phenomenon of technological change, whose importance is reflected in the acceptance, namely trust in the changes in phenomenon. Therefore, from the perspective of consumer psychology, an in-depth study of consumer’s trust role in participation in CC (P2P) can effectively find out the underlying causes of these behaviours and suggest the extent to which blockchain technology can be applied in fashion CC.
Methodology
Based on the novelty and uniqueness of collaborative consumption and very limited empirical support, the research method used will be exploratory in nature without preconceived concepts to study the phenomenon. The investigation nature of qualitative research assumes a smaller sample size than quantitative research and are often case-oriented in-depth analysis. In addition, the purposeful feature of qualitative samples is that it allows for rich and specific texture information to the research. Therefore, different from quantitative research, purposive sampling will be adopted in this research as an “information-rich” case analysis (Robinson, 2014).
Recent research has shown that targeted sampling is more efficient than random sampling in qualitative research, which supports the claims of qualitative methodologists (Etikan, Musa & Alkassim, 2016). This research will use multi-method qualitative research to study the complex entities in a way that is holistic and retains meaning.
Triangulation by method:
1. Systematic literature review
The reason is due to the uniqueness of the subject research (Thorpe & Holt, 2008), as well as its specificity and repeatability, which can identify, evaluate and synthesize the existing subject of the work completed and recorded by the researcher (Fink, 2005). Both academic and practice literatures will be reviewed as with many technological innovations, the academic studies tend to lag in their applications of technologies in practice. Solely relying on journals for instance when investigating trust and blockchain may be relatively narrow.
A pilot systematic literature review will be used to decide upon the appropriate breadth for the final literature review. Given blockchain was firstly introduced in 2008 (Nakamoto, 2008), and consumer trust was well studied in the past, our review will span the period 2008 to 2020.
2. Semi-structured interviews
Qualitative semi-structured interviews (generalising descriptive data) with open-ended questions will be conducted. Interview questions will get from the systematic literature review. It allows us to build an inclusive and potentially new understanding of consumers’ trust in CC and blockchain technology (DiCicco-Bloom & Crabtree, 2006). Each interview will last 15–30 minutes. DiCicco-bloom and Crabtree (2006) endorse this method for eliciting information-intensive data, especially for subjective understandings and attitudes.
A purposive sample comprising 7-10 (depending on agreements) mixed gender participants respondents will be invited to participate in the study. Among them, I hope to conduct interviews among a heterogenous group (e.g., blockchain experts (academic and practice), people who works in fashion industry (academic and practice), people who experienced CC), finally summarizing the discussion point.
Thematic analysis will be performed to overcome the usual problems associated with qualitative research. The process undertaken will be briefly described along with data consolidation and conclusions.
Limitations
According to Dey (1999), however, data saturation is not appropriate to determine prior to the research as “new data” may emerge during analysis. He believed that data saturation should reach a counter-productive state, which is allowing the newly emerged data to guide the analysis and reach a point where the newly emerged data no longer adds value to the theoretical framework and research question proposed for the study. This work aims to develop the present body of knowledge of CC, consumer behavioural change as well as applications of blockchain technology as a future-oriented discussion in the development of CC, thus recognising the concomitant limitations.
Research framework
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