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The study aims to identify the determinants of customer satisfaction in the electronic commerce (e-commerce) industry in Bangladesh. It also investigates whether acceptance of IT innovation mediates the relationship between the determinants of e-commerce and customer satisfaction.

A survey questionnaire had been designed and distributed among the customers of e-commerce businesses. Data were collected from 408 respondents, who were mostly from urban areas of the country. The collected data had been analysed with the application of the partial least square approach using SmartPLS4. First, the measurement model was applied to determine the validity and reliability of the dataset. Then, the structural model was utilized to justify the hypothesis.

The results showed that customer service, perceived ease of use and customer trust in e-commerce services have a significant positive impact on customer satisfaction. The acceptance of IT innovation, which showed a positive influence on customer satisfaction, enhanced customer satisfaction when accompanied by perceived ease of use and digital literacy.

The results would have valuable insight for the e-commerce business in designing their products and services and taking policies to achieve long-term customer loyalty.

This is the first study that incorporates IT innovation acceptance as a mediating variable. Although a number of factors have been identified as the determinants of customer satisfaction, the specific mechanism of IT innovation acceptance as a mediator between predictors and customer satisfaction is unique in this study.

The purpose of this paper is to identify optimum operating parameters, namely, link-length and vertex angle, for producing virtual clothing prototypes for the purpose of pattern flattening.

Commercially available physically based simulation and flattening engines were utilized to carry out the computational part of this study. Two separately developed 3D garment templates were used for the creation of virtual garments in the form of a triangulated mesh and later for pattern unwrapping by taking differential link-lengths and vertex angles into account to ascertain their effects on the mesh quality and on the ultimate pattern flattening process.

It has been found that a link-length between 10 and 15 mm and a vertex angle between 120° and 160° are optimum for the virtual clothing prototyping process.

The findings of this study can universally be applied to simplify the tasks of virtual clothing prototyping and pattern unwrapping using commercial software packages.

Previously, there has not been any guidance available for the selection of specific operational parameters to promote 3D garment design.

As the areas of fashion marketing are transforming, fashion show research needs to be recognised, to understand its prevalence, changing form and influence on the consumer behaviour. The paper studied the promotion strategies for the brand and products of fashion designers in Bahrain, in particular the fashion shows, its digital versions, and the factors influencing their choice. The study was conducted using the qualitative method and the detailed semi-structured qualitative interview method was employed and sample of designers and a prominent modeling agency were selected by purposive sampling technique. In-depth interviews with designers were structured to understand the fashion industry, participation in fashion shows and preference of mode of fashion show. Interviews were conducted with the modeling agency, to understand the prevalence of fashion shows, and the execution and demand of organising fashion shows. The data gathered were supported by the relevant secondary data and document analysis and presented. In the study both the forms of the fashion show viz., live and digital are discussed and compared. The digital fashion show and similar forms as short films, videos, on social media seem to be more promising, with minimum requirement of set design, wider reach, economic, ease of execution. The research suggests that physical and digital fashion shows have their advantages and disadvantages, with the choice ultimately based on the brand's goals and resources. As technology advances and the fashion industry changes, digital fashion shows are likely to play an increasingly important role in the future.

This study investigated changes in appearance due to variations in the amount of ease allowance at the bust, waist and hips with ready-made women's shirts in two different styles. The authors also examined the suitable range for ease allowance with those two styles using a sensory test for evaluating appearance.

The authors employed two women's shirts (samples I and II) in different styles (fit and straight). The authors modified the size of the bust, waist and hips with a changeable-size dress form using 1-cm intervals. The authors observed the shape changes. With the pictures at 2-cm intervals, the authors conducted a sensory test to evaluate appearance. 20 Japanese university students in their 20s made their assessments using seven items (wrinkles, fit, silhouette, beauty, fashionable impression, comfort and purchase intention) with a five-point scale. The proportion of subjects who scored 1 or more was 40% or greater when using ease allowance in the suitable range.

The appropriate ranges of ease allowance differed according to the style and evaluation items. Regarding appearance and purchase intention with sample I from the front, the suitable range of ease allowance was 1–7 cm for the bust, 2–6 cm for the hips and 13 cm for the waist. From the side, the range was 0–6 cm for the hips and 7 cm for the bust. With sample II from the front, the suitable range of ease allowance was about 4 cm for all parts. From the side, the range was 11 cm for the bust and 4 cm for the hips.

Using a dress form, the authors determined suitable ranges of ease allowance for two women's shirts in fit and straight styles with seven bust, six waist and six hip sizes. The authors found that the suitable range of ease allowance varied according to the style, direction and parts of the shirt. Our results can act as a guideline for designing and selecting ease allowance for women's shirts, taking into account comfort from appearance, purchase intention and beauty.

This paper’s objective is to provide a systematic literature review of the contextual factors affecting downward communication from supervisors to subordinates in the audit environment. In addition, this review identifies emerging research themes and directions for future research.

I accomplish this review’s objectives by leveraging communication literature to establish a framework to identify and synthesize contextual factors affecting downward communication in the audit environment. The review identifies 50 published articles in the last 20 years from leading accounting and auditing journals.

This study consolidates research findings on downward communication under two primary contextual factors: (1) message and (2) channel. Findings indicate that empirical research examining communication in audit is fragmented and limited. Studies examining the message focus heavily on its content and treatment in the areas of feedback, nonverbal cues, and fraud brainstorming, and a handful of additional studies examine the effectiveness of the channel in these areas. Additional research is needed to understand a broader set of supervisor–subordinate communication practices, including those that are computer-mediated, and their effect on subordinate auditors’ judgments and behaviors in the contemporary audit environment.

Much of the audit literature examining communication to date is topic-versus construct-based, making it difficult to see how the research findings relate to one another. This review is the first to synthesize the literature to provide academics recommendations for a way forward, and inform practitioners of communication practices whereby supervisors can be trained to improve audit quality.

This paper aims to identify key theoretical cornerstones and research trends in the apparel industry. It also compares theoretical bases with those of the general research domain in technology adoption literature and, thus, provides future policy guidelines for practitioners and research gaps for further studies.

Documents were collected from the Web of Science (core collection) database using systematic methods. The bibliometric coupling and co-citation analyses were conducted using VOSviewer software to construct theoretical cornerstones and research trends in the apparel industry.

Literature in the apparel industry focuses mainly on the diffusion of innovation and the theory of reasoned action. Hence, the literature lacks investigations of technology–organization–environment and institutional theories for technology adoption in the apparel industry. This study also traces six clusters of prevalent research trends: radiofrequency identification, virtual-try on technology for e-commerce, computer-aided design, Industry 4.0 technologies, virtual-try on technology in design and information technology.

Little research is done on theoretical cornerstones on technology adoption in the apparel industry. This study looks into the theoretical bases for technology adoption, research trends in the apparel supply chain and calls for future research necessities.

In order to present a significant usage of the computer-aided design (CAD)/computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) systems in the apparel and textile industry, the current literature has been observed. Although the CAD/CAM systems have also been increasingly applied to all fields apparel and textile manufacturing for the last few decades, improving the precision, productivity and the organization of the information flow, they have not been fully utilized in these industrial fields. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The paper is structured in three main sections showing the vast applicability of the CAD/CAM systems, the benefits provided by them and the future trend in their development.

Although the initial development of the CAD/CAM systems strived to completely eliminate manual and time-consuming operations, they have not been accepted in practice due to their inflexibility at making changes and the time needed for regenerating a complex parametric model. The textile and apparel industries show slow progress in acquiring the CAD/CAM systems.

This CAD/CAM technology enabled the customization in the design process according to individual needs and directed the textile and the apparel industry to moving into new directions such as the mass customization to personalization. The paper makes clear that although this technological concept is rather old, the use of the CAD/CAM systems will inevitably broaden in terms of applicability to new production stages.

This study aims to understand Bangladeshi young consumers’ perceptions of sustainable apparel. Specifically, through the lens of the theory of reasoned action (TRA), this study investigates the impacts of man–nature orientation (MNO) and social influences on Bangladeshi young consumers’ intention to purchase sustainable apparel.

Empirical survey-based research was conducted, and data were collected from 387 Bangladeshi college students.

The findings of the study show that MNO significantly influences Bangladeshi young consumers’ attitudes toward purchasing sustainable apparel, which, together with social influences, impacts young Bangladeshi consumers’ intention of making efforts to purchase sustainable apparel.

This study incorporates the specific cultural value – MNO with the traditional TRA model to understand young Bangladeshi consumers’ sustainable apparel purchase intention. The results of this study demonstrate the applicability of the TRA framework in understanding young consumers’ sustainable apparel consumer behavior in the context of Bangladesh, which is a developing country with a collectivistic culture. This study provides insights into how apparel brands and retailers should design their sustainability strategies in developing countries such as Bangladesh.

The purpose of this study was to explore body shapes among overweight and obese men and examine fit issues based on the current ASTM sizing standards related to the categorized body shapes.

The SizeUSA data and the additional data extracted using the ImageTwin (TC2-19) software were used. To categorize body shapes, principal component (PC) analysis with varimax rotation, hierarchical cluster analysis for an elbow method and K-mean cluster analysis were employed. Comparing the categorized body shapes and ASTM sizing charts, a cross-tabulation was performed to test associations between fit analyses for top and bottom for the body shape groups. Furthermore, an analysis of variance and pairwise comparison were performed to identify differences in mean values of size drops between two body parts across the different body shape groups.

Using a three-dimensional (3D) body scanning technology and 3D virtual avatars, three body shapes for overweight and obese men emerged: Rectangle-curvy, bottom hourglass-hip tilt and top hourglass-straight shapes. Further, overweight and obese male consumers are not likely to find a perfect fit from apparel companies who developed their sizing charts based on the men's and big men's ASTM standards. Notably, the big men's ASTM sizing standard did not work for most overweight and obese men the United States.

Despite the notable increase in the US population that is overweight and obese, most overweight and obese men have had fit problems due to the differences in their body shapes as compared to the standardized body shape used in the current sizing system. The results of this study suggest apparel companies who are targeting overweight and obese male consumers in the United States updating their sizing systems in order to solve fit problems.

The purpose of this paper is to compare real fabric drape images and virtual fabric drape images created by a commercial software. To achieve an in-depth comparison, actual and virtual drape shape properties were considered under three categories: drape area, number of nodes and shape of folds. The results of this research are expected to be useful to improve the reality and accuracy of fabric and garment.

Five different fabrics were selected for this study. Fabrics’ mechanical properties were tested by fabric assurance for simple testing method, while drape properties were measured by a Cusick drape meter. A commercial garment simulation was used to generate virtual fabric drapes. Real fabric drape images and virtual fabric drape images were analyzed by an image analysis software and results were used to calculate drape properties. Regression analysis was performed to compare real fabric drape and virtual fabric drape properties.

Differences between real fabric drape and virtual fabric drape were stated clearly. Simulation software was found to be insufficient to reflect drape area. However, simulations were quite successful corresponding to the number of nodes. Only one simulation had +2 nodes than its actual counterpart. This study showed that area and node shape representations of simulation software should be improved while node numbers are sufficiently represented.

There are alternative 3D garment simulation software available to the fashion business. All these companies are working on to improve their simulation reality and accuracy. Some of them are also offering various equipment to measure the fabric properties. In this study, Optitex 3D Suite was selected as the simulation software due to several reasons as explained in this paper. However, other simulation programs might also be employed to perform virtual fabric drapes. Furthermore, in this study, the drape images of five woven fabrics were compared. The fabric selection was done according to a pre-test and consequently similar fabrics were determined to be the subject of the study. However, the more the number of the fabrics, the better the comparison and eventually the better the assessment of simulation success. Therefore, it is prospected to test more fabrics with versatile fabric properties for further studies.

Drape shape was observed from three perspectives: drape area, node numbers, and node shapes. Dealing the problem from these perspectives provided an in-depth comparison of real and virtual drapes. In this study, standard deviation of peak angles was used to explain node distribution that is new to the literature to the authors’ knowledge.