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Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the impacts of Chinese young consumers’ traits (fashion leadership, quality consciousness, price consciousness, environmental consciousness and social media usage) as the external factors on their behavioral intention toward using clothing subscription rental services. Design/methodology/approach Quantitative research was conducted, and empirical data were collected from 255 Chinese college students. Structural equation modeling was conducted to test the proposed hypotheses. Findings The study offered convincing evidence that fashion leadership, price consciousness and social media usage are the three main drivers of Chinese young consumers’ favorable attitudes toward clothing subscription rental services, which together with social norms further lead to their intention to use clothing subscription rental services. Contrary to expectations, the study showed that consumers’ quality consciousness and environmental consciousness have no significant impact on consumer attitudes toward clothing subscription rental services. Moreover, the findings of the study demonstrated the impact of attitude and subjective norms on Chinese young consumers’ intention to use clothing subscription rental services. Originality/value This study contributes to the literature by integrating additional factors (fashion leadership, quality consciousness, price consciousness, consumer environmental knowledge, social media usage) into the traditional theory of reasoned action model to investigate how Chinese young consumers’ characteristics impact their attitudes and how their attitudes and subjective norms impact their intention toward using clothing subscription rental services.

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to understand the impact of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic on the global textile and apparel supply chain from the perspectives of industry professionals within the two leading production countries: Bangladesh and China.Design/methodology/approachApplying the theory of dynamic capabilities, a qualitative research design was employed using interviews with a total of 33 apparel industry practitioners, 15 in Bangladesh and 18 in China.FindingsFindings indicate that four factors primarily impacted the extent to which COVID-19 disrupted a firm's supply chain: firm size, channel diversification, sourcing method and product type. Viewed through the lens of the theory of dynamic capabilities, findings point to the need for firms to address the challenges brought about by supply chain disruptions by creating opportunities.Originality/valueIt is important to understand the impact of COVID-19 in real time and within the two largest textile and apparel–producing countries globally, as they have borne much of the brunt of the supply chain disruptions brought on by COVID-19. This empirical study makes contributions to the apparel supply chain literature as it provides an in-depth investigation of what textile and apparel firms in China and Bangladesh have learned from the COVID-19 experience to better prepare for future unexpected global events.

The numerical accuracy of finite element analysis (FEA) depends on the number of finite elements used in the discretization of the space, which can be varied using the mesh size. The larger the number of elements, the more accurate the results are. However, the computational cost increases with the number of elements. In current practice, the experimenter chooses a mesh size that is expected to produce a reasonably accurate result, and for which the computer simulation can be completed in a reasonable amount of time. Improvements to this approach have been proposed using multifidelity modeling by choosing two or three mesh sizes. However, mesh size is a continuous parameter, and therefore, multifidelity simulations can be performed easily by choosing a different value for the mesh size for each of the simulations. In this article, we develop a method to optimally find the mesh sizes for each simulation and satisfy the same time constraints as a single or a double mesh size experiment. A range of different mesh sizes used in the proposed method allows one to fit multifidelity models more reliably and predict the outcome when meshes approach infinitesimally small, which is impossible to achieve in actual simulations. We illustrate our approach using an analytical function and a cantilever beam finite element analysis experiment.

Computer simulators are widely used for the study of complex systems. In many applications, there are multiple simulators available with different scientific interpretations of the underlying mechanism, and the goal is to identify an optimal simulator based on the observed physical experiments. To achieve the goal, we propose a selection criterion based on leave-one-out cross-validation. This criterion consists of a goodness-of-fit measure and a generalized degrees of freedom penalizing the simulator sensitivity to perturbations in the physical observations. Asymptotic properties of the selected optimal simulator are discussed. It is shown that the proposed procedure includes a conventional calibration method as a special case. The finite sample performance of the proposed procedure is demonstrated through numerical examples. In the application of cell biology, an optimal simulator is selected, which can shed light on the T cell recognition mechanism in the human immune system. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.

Research in supply chain management focused on the buyer-supplier relationship (BSR) indicates that costing practices can impact relationship quality and performance. Yet, few studies have examined how the supplier’s costing methods affect the BSR. To address this gap, this study investigates the role of open costing in the BSR within the apparel supply chain. Open costing is a popular costing practice in which a supplier compiles an itemized list of costs rather than a fixed price. To examine the extent to which open costing is practiced as part of BSRs, interviews were conducted with 30 professionals operating as suppliers in China and Bangladesh. A thematic analysis of the interview data identified several factors important to open costing and the BSR, including Mutual Trust, Fairness, Flexibility, Efficiency, and Sustainability. Findings shed light on the mechanism and practice of open costing within the BSR, and specifically from the perspective of suppliers.