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Fashion consciousness is an important consumers' attribute affecting their purchase of luxury products. The existing research mainly focuses on certain factors of fashion consciousness in fashion markets. This research investigates the psychological and social factors of fashion consciousness in the luxury fashion market. Specifically, we analyse how these factors affect fashion consciousness and purchase behaviour among consumers in three age groups of 18-23, 24-29 and 30-35. We find that self-monitoring and self-concept affect fashion consciousness among consumers of the age group of 18-23. We also show that media exposure has a positive effect on fashion consciousness in the age groups of 24-29 and 30-35. Accordingly, we suggest that retailers come up with proper advertising messages to influence the self-monitoring and self-concept of young consumers around the twenties. We also recommend selecting appropriate channels to enhance the exposure of luxury fashion information to consumers in their mid-twenties to mid-thirties.

In response to common criticisms on the appropriateness of mean-variance in asset allocation decisions involving hedge funds, we offer a mean-Gini framework as an alternative. The mean-Gini framework does not require the usual normality assumption concerning return distributions. We also evaluate empirically the differences in allocation outcomes between the two frameworks using historical data. The differences turn out to be significant. The evidence thus confirms the inappropriateness of the mean-variance framework and enhances the attractiveness of mean-Gini for this asset class.

The purpose of this article is to examine Chinese generation Y consumers' fashion clothing involvement effects on specific brand related consumer responses including brand status, brand attitude and willingness to pay a premium for a specific brand.

A self‐completion questionnaire survey was administered in China to university students aged between 18 and 25.

A consumer's level of involvement was found to have positive effect on brand related responses such as perception of brand status and brand attitude. Further brand status and brand attitude were found to have positive impacts on consumer's willingness to pay a premium for a specific brand.

First, based on the student sample used for study it may not be possible to generalize the effects found to non‐students. Second, the findings from this study focusing on fashion clothing brands are perhaps limited in their generalisability to other product categories.

An important finding that is beneficial to marketing practitioners in China, especially for those in the fashion industry, is the findings that maintaining the status of a brand would be more effective with highly involved consumers leading to an overall more positive attitude. Marketing initiatives with status building objectives are therefore essential for enabling brands to command higher prices.

This paper expands understanding of consumer behaviour related to Chinese generation Y consumer behaviour, fashion clothing involvement and status branding.

Cosmopolitanism and xenocentrism denote distinct individual orientations toward cultural outgroups. The former considers an individual’s openness to cultural diversity and ability to navigate through intercultural environments, whereas the latter describes an individual’s feelings of admiration or preference for specific cultural outgroup(s), over his/her ingroup. Few studies have simultaneously examined these constructs and fewer still have considered these within a nomological framework of key predictors (i.e. basic psychological needs) and practical outcomes (e.g. influentialness and friendships across different groups). The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The authors hypothesized a series of relationships of various antecedents and outcomes of cosmopolitanism and xenocentrism, and tested these conjectures using survey data from Canadians (n=238) and Americans (n=239).

The findings support the psychometric robustness of our tripartite operationalization of xenocentrism, and clearly distinguish this construct from cosmopolitanism. Beyond confirming earlier findings, the authors illuminate several novel relationships (e.g. between basic psychological needs, cosmopolitanism and xenocentrism), and elucidate the role played by a key personality dimension, neuroticism, in mediating the relationships between basic psychological needs and the two outgroup orientations.

Samples of this study are drawn from North America and a cross-sectional research design is used.

Whereas for xenocentric consumers admiration of one or more foreign culture(s) displaces customary preferences for one’s own cultural group, cosmopolitan consumers are able to embrace outside cultures without disaffection from their sociocultural ingroup. Given the obvious repercussions of these differences for targeting international consumer segments and for positioning brands across borders, our research has numerous practical applications as well as theoretical implications.

Outlines previous research on the relationship between dividend policy and stock returns; and uses a linear programme and multi‐index model to form an investment strategy to see whether dividend yields increase stock returns. Explains the methodology, tests it on 1965‐1989 US data and presents the results, which suggests that the multi‐index model is superior to the single index market model in terms of explanatory power and volatility; but provides conflicting conclusions on the relevance of dividends to stock returns. Suggests that the negative relationship between dividends and stock returns can be explained by Jensen’s (1986) free cash flow theory and the influence of transaction costs.

Shalit and Yitzhaki presented the mean‐extended Gini (MEG) as a workable alternative to the Markowitz mean‐variance approach in 1984. Since then, the challenge has been to extend the MEG approach. The purpose of this paper is to propose a generalization of the MEG approach for making customized optimal asset allocation to control both down‐performance and/or up‐performance.

The MEG approach is used to make strategical allocation tailored to the investor risk aversion and gain propensity measured by characteristic parameters of the extended Gini measures.

The authors set up two optimization problems: the former focused on controlling the risk, the latter on emphasizing the potential gains. Sufficient conditions such that the efficient MEG‐risk frontier coincides with the inefficient MEG‐gain frontier are stated. In the realistic scenarios that portfolios have asymmetrical distributions and/or the investor profile is very conservative or very aggressive, the desirable occurrence that a portfolio is optimal under both optimizations may occur.

The main contribution of this research is to have pointed out that optimal allocation must be tailored to both the investor's risk and gain profile; and, that the optimality may be not preserved if the investor's risk‐gain profile changes. So, the statement “optimal allocation” should be reworded as “optimal allocation personalized to the investor's risk‐aversion and gain‐propensity”.

This paper presents a comprehensive statistical report on China’s current apparel retailing environment, including the macro‐ (demographic, economic, political, cultural, technological and natural factors) and micro‐ (sourcing, garment manufacturing, marketing intermediaries and consumers) environments affecting foreign investments in China’s apparel retailing market. With an examination of China’s demographic and economic indicators over the past 20 years, and the changing pattern of other macro‐factors having typically influenced the foreign investments in China’s apparel retailing sector, the paper also investigates the prevailing micro‐factors facing foreign investors. The future prospects of the China apparel retailing industry were also discussed.