| Abstract: | Chinese adolescents are growing up with China's rapid economic growth and they represent the up and coming group of China's fashionistas. The aim of this study is to assess the effectiveness of consumer socialization on Chinese adolescents' fashion involvement. Using the data collected from 169 Chinese adolescents, the research provides empirical results about the impacts of different consumer socialization agents on Chinese adolescents' fashion involvement. The study results reveal the positive and significant impacts of fashion magazines, fashion websites and peers on Chinese adolescents' fashion involvement, but a negative and significant impact of Internet on adolescents' fashion involvement. In addition, parents and TV were found to have no significant impact on Chinese adolescents' fashion involvement. Such empirical research not only deepens our understanding of the nature and strength of the relationships between the consumer socialization agents and Chinese adolescents' fashion consumer behaviour, but also makes a meaningful contribution to improving the consumer socialization framework. We believe these findings will be useful to update current consumer socialization frameworks and make it more relevant and useful for studying the new generation of consumers in the emerging market context. |
