Factors influencing youths fashion leadership behavior of fashion retailing stores in Jordan

Article history: Received: June 26, 2020 Received in revised format: June 3


Introduction
Over the past years, globalization has trimmed the borders between countries and reduced the time used in promoting new products and services (Bataineh, 2017). However, with lower trade barriers, the global textile and apparel industry during the last 10 years has grown more competitive; prices have fallen and margins have become thinner (Rahman et al., 2014). The role of brand managers was to find radical solutions from a consumer's perspective to face these challenges . Accordingly, retailers were in need to maintain a stable market share and a competitive advantage to overcome this intense environment. Fashion styles has become blurred in convincing the consumers to adapt and accept the massive amount of clothing variety, taking into consideration the fact that the difference in fashion styles inherited has started to become more like homogenized styles. Despite that the job of retailers along with marketers has become more and more challenging leading to the important role of fashion leaders in changing consumer fashion patterns. What is more, the ultimate aim is to convince the consumers to favor the trendiest fashion with less or no consideration; therefore, fashion leaders play a tremendous role in facilitating the acceptance of the newest or most innovative fashion by speeding up the adoption process (Kim & Hong, 2011). The apparel industry accounted for 2.8 percent of the world merchandise trade (WTO, 2017). On the other hand, large producers of clothing have moved their factories from the western countries to Asia and the Far East, e.g. China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India, to gain low labor costs, low taxes, and abundance of raw materials. However, the textile and apparel industry occupied the first rank in the Jordanian exports by 10.24 million JD according to the latest report provided by the Jordanian Chamber of Commerce (2018).
The Jordanian clothing industry faces intense competition; the existence of huge brand chains leads to invade the local production and postponing its progress. Hence, it seems important to elaborate on the hedonic shopping motivations of the Jordanian youth's fashion leadership behavior because youths particularly follow fashion opinion leaders by accelerating both the adoption and spreading of new fashion items. This is why marketers need to have a better understanding to be able to target customers and also ensure maximum acceptance of their product as youth represent a promising and appealing market in Jordan and are the biggest portion of the Jordanian community. Moreover, retailers might reduce the costs of launching new fashion styles by carefully monitoring fashion opinion leaders' behaviors and understanding their consumption patterns, which will give them broad lines for future marketing strategies. Accordingly, this research is trying to investigate to how much degree Jordanian youth's fashion opinion leadership varies with regard to the hedonic shopping motivations since it is evident that the perceptions of the psychological motivation for fashion shopping are still fuzzy compared with the perceptions of demographical point of view. Hence, this research might be a cornerstone in helping marketers as well as researchers to understand youth's hedonic shopping motivation and fashion leadership behavior.

Literature Review
The apparel industry is dynamic, driven by fashion diversity to increase demand. This diversity results in uncertainty as it is hard to predict the demand acceptation pattern (Bataineh & Alfalah, 2015). Fashion leaders work as influential agents who convince others to adapt to fashion diversity (Kang & Park-Poaps, 2010). According to Atik and Firat (2013), leadership behavior is not only associated with a particular social class but also with each sub-society class. Also, the diffusion of a specific fashion outfit is linked to the ability of the marketer to decode the style and look for the leader who could be bind to it. Meanwhile, Jordan is a country with a young population having more than 70 percent of people under the age of 34 years, 27.1 percent represents youth between the age of 20 and 34 years, which means that youth is one of the most appealing markets for retailers and the largest segment for clothing and fashion stores in Jordan (Department of Statistics, 2017). This research focused on youth as they present a large base of shoppers in the Jordanian community as well as a major purchasing power that they spent 250 million JD on clothing (Jordan Chamber of commerce, 2016). Hence, today youth desire only the best products with the best value.

Fashion Leadership Behavior
Product or a style can wait for years to be diffused or accepted. People first need to be aware of it which can be made possible if fashion opinion leaders adopt the style. As a result, followers will copy the leader's behavior and eventually it becomes part of their fashion norms (Fam et al., 2010). Opinion leaders always are known as the first class to adopt and spread the new fashion style, while other consumers are considered to be fashion followers who imitate the opinion leaders' behaviors (Rahman, 2014). Therefore, fashion opinion leaders are always looking for new fashion styles to differentiate them and ensure their innovativeness. Also, the transmission of opinion leaders' word of mouth consists of informal communications directed at other consumers about the ownership, usage, or characteristics of a particular product or service. However, opinion leaders have a great deal between behavior and time of adoption, since the time they need to pass the style to others can delay the adoption time, the more familiar the innovation the less time is needed to spread it. Kang and Park-Poaps (2010) found that opinion leaders have a fundamental role in the adoption of their intimate group of individuals more than on the mass group of a social system. Clearly, opinion leadership behavior is driven by the need to stand out, to be known, and admired through their advice and recommendation. Leaders are satisfying their own symbolic needs, not the other's need (Goldsmith et al., 2008). According to Kim and Hong (2011), motivations will trigger a particular behavior, in which an individual will experience either satisfaction or dissatisfaction as a reaction to the undertaken behavior. Although in the scope of fashion leadership behavior, it is important to understand that opinion leaders are not only affected by their internal traits but also by specific external shopping motivations. Traditionally, shopping was always considered as a goal-oriented task, but for the opinion leaders, shopping is a satisfactory task even if no product purchasing has occurred (Hanzaee & Khonsari, 2011). In the consumer's behavior, it is essential to embrace the hedonic/utilitarian shopping motivations to have a clear vision of the actual behavior. According to Cho and Workman (2011), people will perform specific reactions in response to their psychological behavior. Hence, opinion leadership is based on either hedonic or utilitarian shopping motivations. Moreover, the product nature and circumstances can inherit either the hedonic or the utilitarian shopping motivations (Roy & Ng, 2012).

Hedonic Shopping Motivations
In the last few decades hedonistic motivations have been blossoming in many aspects, it has started getting well identified, and researchers have started moving to the hedonistic part of life (Bridges & Florsheim, 2008). According to Allard et al. (2009), store atmosphere, such as layout, colors, and lighting, contributes to increase or decrease consumers' hedonic motivations. On the other hand, consumers who experience positive hedonic consumption will not only result in satisfaction but also the future buying intention will also be affected (Hanzaee & Khonsari, 2011). Consumers who are satisfied with their hedonic shopping consumption will definitely recommend this product or store to others and also plan for future purchasing (Ryu et al., 2010). Hence, individuals with hedonistic orientation will translate their pleasure and multisensory feelings into satisfaction. To face all the changing behavior that exists in today's economic conditions which cause a low shopping engagement, people need a powerful motivation like "hedonistic dimensions" that will recreate shopping actions (Jones et al., 2006). However, loyalty and positive word of mouth are created through satisfactory hedonic experience. Lacking something in our life can create hedonic shopping motivation to get a pleasure feeling (Arnold & Reynold, 2009). Meanwhile, shopping centers are considered to have a triggering effect on the hedonic shopping motivations. According to Lee et al. (2005) all hedonistic dimensions can occur in one shopping trip, but consumers can experience that differently. Furthermore, hedonic shopping motivations have been giving a lot of classifications in consumer behavior literature. While in this study we will use Arnold and Reynolds (2003) in which hedonic shopping motivations are divided into six broad categories: (1) value shopping motivations; (2) gratification shopping motivations; (3) idea shopping motivations; (4) adventure shopping motivations; (5) social shopping motivations, and (6) role shopping motivations. We will discuss this in the following sections.

Value Shopping Motivations
According to Kang and Park (2010), value shoppers have been identified as individuals who think of shopping as a challenge or a game they want to succeed in, they hunt sales, bargain, and they are stunned by negotiations not only to reduce the price but also for them it's a talent they showcase. Otherwise, opinion leader shoppers pay more on fashion products, and the value shopping doesn't have a part in their hedonistic motivation (Scarpi, 2006). Fashion shoppers look for a pleasure experience and don't look from a bargain point of view, they buy luxurious fashion garments without thinking of price level (Juggessur & Cohen, 2009). Additionally, value shopping occurs inside the store by being more attentive to promotions, and many consumers get arousal and a motivation to shop that was not preplanned (Arnold and Reynold, 2003). However, winning a price negotiation will produce a feeling of smartness, excitement, achievement, and pride for consumers (Scarpi, 2006). Thus, the researchers propose the following hypothesis:

H1:
There is an effect of value shopping motivations on fashion leadership behavior.

Gratification Shopping Motivations
Today lives are stressful enough that people feel anxious, irritated, stressed, and under tension all the time, this is why people go shopping to relieve all the pressure of their life. Therefore, they look for shelter to decrease that feeling of stress, it's called gratification shopping, which people use to change their bad mood or just as a special gift after a long week to pamper one's own self (Laurent & Seock, 2010). Additionally, according to Jamal et al. (2006), an increasing group of consumers who tend to avoid reality seeking distraction from everyday life are called gratification escapists. According to Koksal (2012), the selection of a fashion style depends on an individual's mind state. Having a negative mood will increase the colorful selection to improve and enhance their mood. Accordingly, emotion can trigger motivation and push consumers to buy to enhance their mood. However, gratification shopping can be simply summarized as motivation therapy for most of the people, who clarify that shopping is a cure for them (Hausman, 2000). For that reason, Kim and Hong (2011) suggested that gratification is highly related to opinion leadership behavior since they are more involved in apparel shopping. Studies showed that there is a relation between gratification shopping and fashion leadership behavior as they use shopping as a way to overcome the stressful events. Since gratification shopping motivation is the highest source for joy and entertainment in the online context as follows: relaxing, personalized online services, and decreasing pressure (Parker & Wang, 2016). Thus, the researchers propose the following hypothesis:

H2:
There is an effect of gratification shopping motivations on fashion leadership behavior.

Idea Shopping Motivations
Idea shopping is a human cognition need, which refers to those individuals who roll over stores to collect information about the latest most innovated styles to stay up-to-date with fashion (Erkip, 2005). According to Bailey and Seock (2010) idea shopping is simply browsing the merchandise while having no intention to purchase at the present time. Kang and Park (2010) suggested in their study that people are information seekers, they roll over the markets to collect, update, and get all the new innovation details. They find this action pleasing, examining goods or merchandise in malls or stores with no intent to purchase at that time. Moreover, fashion leadership behavior is motivated by idea shopping motivation to stay informed about fashion and develop their huge fashion database that keeps up their innovative style, as well as seeking pleasure while gathering new fashion information (Kotze et al., 2012). According to Koksal (2014) individuals who are driven by idea shopping motivation give extra care to their clothing details, they spend a lot of time looking through details and examine it more than other people. Thus, fashion information can be obtained via different sources such as family, friends, website, mass advertisement, and even by experience (Chocarro et al., 2009). Therefore, opinion leaders have more fashion information because they have different sources of exposure than their followers. Thus, the researchers propose the following hypothesis.

H3:
There is an effect of idea shopping motivations on fashion leadership behavior.

Adventure Shopping Motivations
People who seek adventure are bored and seek something different that supplies them with a feeling of fantasy. It's like they are in another universe, they seek excitement, stimulation, fun, and thrill while they are shopping (Moody et al., 2010). Actually looking for varied entertainment that hasn't explored before could originate a venture into the shopping journey (Hart et al., 2007). According to Kang and Park (2010) individuals, particularly youth, are stimulation hunters, they search for anything that can trigger them and shift them to dreamland where everything is possible. Meanwhile, adventure shoppers are not afraid of trying any style, they look for variety, and they shop to be able to have a risky shot (Kim, 2006). Although Burns (2007) noticed that opinion leaders don't hold any loyalty feeling, they tend to switch their brands more often. The need for adventure, risk, and sensation seeking drives them to do that. Bailey (2010) suggested that satisfaction is a result of two things: arousal and pleasure, while arousal is linked to the stimulation that an atmosphere creates to produce a joyful and satisfying feeling. Thus, the researchers propose the following hypothesis.

H4:
There is an effect of adventure shopping motivations on fashion leadership behavior.

Social Shopping Motivations
Socializing is a human need that exists in the nature of all people. Keeping up with friends and family is enjoyable for most individuals, and it could be one of the primary motives for some individuals (Kang and Park, 2011). Although people frequently suggest shopping to strengthen their relationships with peers and family, they use it as a way to spend valuable and enjoyable time with others (Erkip, 2005). Hart et al. (2007) suggested that females think of shopping as an enjoyable activity through having someone to shop with, while shopping atmosphere can be responsible for discouraging a socializing trip. Nevertheless, acquiring the product is not satisfying as much as having a company through the shopping process. People consider shopping as a way of socializing and a bonding activity (Timothy, 2005). Likewise, people like to share their shopping experience in the online community; they are motivated by comments and likes on social media which motivates them to shop more to be able to share on social media (Parker & Wang, 2016). According to Özer and Gültekin (2012) socializing with strangers is also considered social motivation. Some people like to interact with people they don't know to enrich and expand their experience. Although, seeking status through particular behaviors can also motivate individuals. Even interaction with salespeople will provide a pleasant socializing experience that might lead to an actual purchasing intention (Hu and Jasper, 2006). Thus, the researchers propose the following hypothesis.

H5:
There is an effect of social shopping motivations on fashion leadership behavior.

Role Shopping Motivations
Role shopping motivation refers to the pleasure people seek when shopping for others. This enhances their mood and evokes joyful feelings through shopping for others and advising them (Arnold and Reynold, 2009). Previous research showed that role shopping is the third highest source for feeling of joy in South Africa (Kotze et al., 2012). Besides, the role shopping could be related to a socializing concept. People's devotion to their relationship with others might lead them to exchange gifts that will evoke pleasing feelings (Kang and Park-Poaps, 2011). According to Burns (2007) giving advice to other people will produce a feeling of authority and power. Therefore, many individuals are motivated by role shopping to have more confidence in one's self by giving and sharing opinions. Further, Goldsmith and Clark (2008) revealed that a huge amount of consumers share fashion opinion information and also follow these opinions since they use it as a social comparison method. According to Kim and Hong (2011) people can enjoy shopping experience through buying for others more than buying for themselves. Thus, the researchers propose the following hypothesis.

H6:
There is an effect of role shopping motivations on fashion leadership behavior.

Conceptual Model
The following models have been developed by the researchers to describe and establish the relationships between the research variables.

Research Methodology
The research population consisted of private university students with fashion orientation. The reason behind choosing this segment is that they form the largest segment for apparel and fashion stores in Jordan, according to the latest reports and figures provided by the Department of Statistic (2019). Likewise, private university is considered as a representative sample for fashion leaders since it reflects high income and youth diversity. Additionally, young consumers are more likely and frequently spend their money on clothing and entertainment. The sample of this research consists of youths from selected private universities in Amman. To achieve the purpose of this research, a convenience sampling approach has been used. Convenience sampling is appropriate for this research because of time and budget constraints and access to all sampling frames is not practically possible. In addition, similar type of studies has also supported the use of convenience sampling techniques (Kim & Hong, 2011;Cho & Workman, 2011).

Research Instrument and Data Gathering
A self-administered questionnaire (Appendix A) has been developed based on previous studies as demonstrated in Table 1. However, 500 questionnaires were distributed to the following universities: (1) Isra Private University, (2) Amman Al-Ahlya Private University, (3) Arabian Amman University, and (4) Applied Science Private University. After three months of data gathering, the researchers restored 390 questionnaires, and the number of valid questionnaires for analysis was 336.

Research Validity
In this research, face validity and content validity were used before sharing the questionnaires, as follow:

Face Validity
The validity of the used scales measures has been set up in numerous past studies concerned with the fashion industry. To ensure it suits the research purpose in the Jordanian context, the questionnaire was overviewed by a panel of marketing experts from both fashion retailing stores and academics. Accordingly, all their valuable notes have been taken into consideration to build the research questionnaire and many changes were applied.

Construct Validity
The researchers used Pearson's Test of Independence to see if there is a significant relationship between the variables, and how will they belong to each other (Table 2).  Table 2 shows that most of the variable correlations have a significant level at α ≤ 0.01. Result shows there is no linear relationship between all the variables. This kind of correlation expresses the construct validity. It is known that the highest value of correlation is 1 based on the result. It's obvious that there should be good construct validity for each factor and its related items. However, to see how appropriate the scale construct and the statement measurement are to each other, a corrected item correlation has been done to the research measurement scale as shown in Table 3. According to Table 3, the corrected item correlation has been conducted for 22 items, for all items total degree is >0.20, and the lowest item correlation was 0.25 which suggested that scale item construction is acceptable and was based on Clark and Watson (1995).

Research Reliability
Cronbach's alpha was used to test the internal consistency or reliability of the measures to make sure that each measurement statement suits the variable it is supposed to measure; therefore, a Cronbach's alpha equation has been undertaken.  Table 4 shows that all variables are greater than the cutoff point 60% (Sekran & Bougie, 2013), in which the variable ranged from 0.71% to 0.76%, accordingly the internal reliability coefficients were achieved. Table 5 shows demographic characteristics for the research sample; they are highly in line with previous studies provided in the research background.

Hypothesis Testing
To test the research hypothesis, the researchers have used multiple regression models to analyze the effect of value shopping motivations, gratification shopping motivations, idea shopping motivations, adventure shopping motivations, social shopping motivations, and role shopping motivations on fashion leadership behavior. The results of multiple regression tests are illustrated in Table 6.   Table 6 shows that the degree of correlation coefficient between the dependent and independent variables is 0.781. Meanwhile, the coefficients determination R 2 is 0.610, which indicates if we add one independent variable to the model its degree will be raised even if the added variable doesn't have any importance to the model. Based on that, the independent variables illustrate 60.3% of the dependent variable, while the remaining percent is due to other factors. Moreover, for H1 the table indicates that the T-value is 3.119 with a significant level 0.002 which is lower than α (≤0.05), which means there is a significant effect of value shopping motivation on fashion leadership behavior. For H2, the table indicates that the T-value is 0.456 with a significant level 0.649 which is higher than α (≤0.05), which means there is no significant effect of gratification shopping motivation on fashion leadership behavior. For H3, the table indicates that the T-value is 3.158 with a significant level 0.002 which is lower than α (≤0.05), which means there is a significant effect of value shopping motivation on fashion leadership behavior. For H4, the table indicates that the T-value is 1.008 with a significant level 0.314 which is higher than α (≤0.05), which means there is no significant effect of adventure shopping motivation on fashion leadership behavior. For H5, the table indicates that the T-value is 7.340 with a significant level 0.000 which is lower than α (≤0.05) which means there is a significant effect of social shopping motivation on fashion leadership behavior. Finally, for H6, the table indicates that the T-value is 5.660 with a significant level 0.000 which is lower than α (≤0.05), which means there is a significant effect of role shopping motivation on fashion leadership behavior.

Multicollinearity Test
To measure how much the variance of regression coefficients are independent measures, the researchers have used a multicollinearity test which includes variance inflation factor (VIF) and tolerance. According to Hair et al. (2010), the VIF must be less than 10, while the tolerance factor should be more than 0.05. However, all the VIF and tolerance in the regression models shown in Table 4 have been calculated and clearly indicate that the multicollinearity in this research is not of a great impact.

Finding and Discussion
The purpose of this study was to present an overall prediction for fashion leadership behavior regarding their shopping motivations in the Jordanian context. However, value shopping indicated that shopping is a conscious action that drives shoppers to look for the best deal by comparing multiple prices. This result could be related to many factors such as the fact that the Jordanian economy is suffering from a recession period, which leads many individuals to look for the lowest price even when shopping in branded stores. Also, this result supports previous research findings such as Kim and Hong (2011) and Kotze (2012). The findings from both studies indicated that value shopping motivation was the primary motivation in which it managed to originate the maximum satisfaction for consumers. The gratification shopping motivation doesn't seem to affect or trigger Jordanian youth's fashion opinion leaders' motivations. This result has been supported by Kotze (2012) who found that South African consumers don't enjoy gratification shopping in any manner. Moreover, idea shopping motivation can trigger Jordanian youth's fashion opinion. Rolling through malls is not an odd thing; malls in Jordan are always full of people who actually don't always buy; it is just a way to enrich their fashion information and sensory receptors. This result is supported by Arnold and Reynold (2003) which found that youth particularly males are driven by idea shopping motivation even if there's no prior need or an intention to buy. For adventure shopping motivation, it was found to not have an effect on Jordanian youth's fashion opinion leaders' motivations, and this can be justified because Jordanian shoppers, in general, are cautious and don't look for a risky outfit. However, this result is supported by Kim and Hong (2011) who reported in their findings that female consumers are not motivated by adventure shopping. In terms of social shopping motivation, it was found to have an effect on Jordanian fashion opinion leaders' motivations. It's obvious that socializing is paramount for Jordanians. We often see people shopping with their families or friends, it's always a good opportunity to bond. This result was in line with Kestler (2010) who reported that shopping with family is a strong shopping motivation. Finally, role shopping found to trigger Jordanian youth's fashion opinion leaders' motivations, advising others about their fashion style seems to always show up either between friends or between family members. This result is also supported by Kestler (2010) who concludes that daughters play the adviser role regarding their mothers' style. However, both marketers and retailers need to be aware of youth's motivations which are considered as a key driver in affecting their decisions and behaviors. Having well-known brands is a major factor but in parallel with innovative merchandising and creative user imagery technique to attract youths and let them involve more in the buying process and experience new things. However, the key managerial implications can be summarized as follows: (1) Adopting new and trendy fashion by youths heavily depends on retailers' and marketers' ability to make the new arrivals and styles observable, and that can be achieved by focusing more on those leaders who are considered as fashion icons for youths.
(2) Fashion marketers can encourage those leaders to spread positive word of mouth on their own social networking site and share their experience with fashion stores which might support marketing message credibility.
(3) Retailers may spend more effort on educating youths and leaders about the main competitive advantage of the brand and what differentiates this season style from the previous one. (4) Fashion retailer stores should give huge attention to store layout, music, and light which reflect what the brands really stand for, which might lead to increase the store footfall. (5) Finally, fashion leaders are interested in being innovators to the market more than focusing on shopping as a journey, which leads marketers and retailers to provide them with timely information about new styles and trigger them to try new styles even by offering free samples or special discounts, since they are the real ambassador for these stores and brands.

Recommendations and Future Research
Since fashion leaders play an important role in the diffusion of fashion items, retailers of fashion stores in Jordan might devote their efforts to attract and retain them in the future, especially when Jordanian consumers, in general, and opinion leaders, in particular, are already attached to the idea of shopping at malls and retailing stores. Besides, fashion store marketers can provide a product at a fair price because Jordanian leaders are motivated by value shopping motivations and conduct a systematic discount plan using different types of sales promotion tools. However, Jordanian leaders are motivated by social shopping, which means that retailers can create a friendly store atmosphere that encourages shopping with family or peers, which can help them in acquiring more shoppers. Finally, the results showed that adventure shopping motivation is not effective in attracting Jordanian opinion leaders, in which retailers and marketers need to create outfits that match shoppers' social norms. In terms of future research, customers from different age groups can be deeply investigated to provide a comprehensive view of their shopping behaviors. Also, for future research, leadership behaviors related to other shopping motivations can be explored. Finally, other researchers might research on fashion leadership within an online context since online context might be fruitful for similar research.