The focus of this confirmatory research was on consumer attitudes towards the sustainability of fashion brands and how these attitudes influence their purchasing decisions. The aim was to explore if the gap between attitudes and purchasing behaviour was present within Croatian consumers to the same extent as previous research has shown. A survey was conducted of 263 respondents with purchasing power to examine their perception, awareness of, and attitudes towards sustainability and eco-fashion as consumers. The data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics and correlation analysis. The results suggest that participants have a positive attitude towards the sustainability of fashion brands. Moreover, a positive correlation was found between the importance of fashion brand sustainability and consumers’ decisions to buy sustainable clothing products. However, the sustainability of a fashion brand or product is among the least important factors in their purchasing decision. This could mean that their positive attitude may not necessarily be reflected in actual purchasing behaviour, which is consistent with previous research. The results of this study provide a framework for a greater understanding of the various factors that may influence consumer behaviour, such as the sustainability of a fashion brand or product, potentially facilitating the development of relevant strategies in the fashion industry and changing the way fashion works and is perceived in the future.

A significant portion of the academic community, including students, teachers, and researchers, has incorporated generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools into their everyday tasks. Alongside increased productivity and numerous benefits, specific challenges that are fundamental to maintaining academic integrity and excellence must be addressed. This paper examines whether ethical implications related to copyrights and authorship, transparency, responsibility, and academic integrity influence the usage of GenAI tools in higher education, with emphasis on differences across academic segments. The findings, based on a survey of 883 students, teachers, and researchers at University North in Croatia, reveal significant differences in ethical awareness across academic roles, gender, and experience with GenAI tools. Teachers and researchers demonstrated the highest awareness of ethical principles, personal responsibility, and potential negative consequences, while students—particularly undergraduates—showed lower levels, likely due to limited exposure to structured ethical training. Gender differences were also significant, with females consistently demonstrating higher awareness across all ethical dimensions compared to males. Longer experience with GenAI tools was associated with greater ethical awareness, emphasizing the role of familiarity in fostering understanding. Although strong correlations were observed between ethical dimensions, their connection to future adoption was weaker, highlighting the need to integrate ethical education with practical strategies for responsible GenAI tool use.

The focus of this paper is placed on the role of emotions in consumer behavior, specifically in the process of purchasing dietary supplements during the COVID-19 pandemic. The theoretical part is based on current knowledge from relevant Croatian and foreign scientific and professional literature on dietary supplements, the COVID-19 pandemic, consumer behavior, decision-making and the impact of emotions on it, while the empirical research portion of this paper details the attitudes of consumers who buy food supplements, the role and importance of different emotions that have a greater or a lesser impact on the purchase of food supplements, with special reference to the timing of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the factors that make consumers decide to purchase food supplements. This research was conducted in the form of a survey that included 257 respondents who were actual users of dietary supplements. It showed that the main drive for buying dietary supplements during the COVID-19 pandemic is the emotion of fear, as the consumers perceived this new disease as a threat to their health and life.

The importance of constant consumer testing is emphasized in order for companies to deliver the highest value for the quality of products and services. To explain the psychological impact of price on product selection, and other factors that determine consumer behavior, a survey method was applied. When deciding to buy a product, the consumer’s perception of the value of selected re-search products (clothing, footwear, children’s equipment) is crucial and it can often differ from the value derived from the price set by the seller. The conducted research proved that sellers can really influence consumers’ decision to buy a product with their price, and that a large number of consumers perceive the price incorrectly and thus buy more than they planned. Having in mind the subject of this paper, the basic scientific goal was to define a consumer model that integrates factors (variables) influencing consumer behavior to answer the question of how and why con-sumers react to rising product prices, how much they use the importance of information about product quality as a parameter of the decision, and how much consumers when choosing a product notice the price ending in a different number from the number of zeros. As consumer behavior is strongly influenced by a number of factors, it can be defined that the consumer’s response to selected activities: price increases, lack of product information and numerical way of expressing product prices may not contain all factors and their relationships and simplifies the picture of the consumer model. In order to test hypotheses about the extent to which customers are sensitive and willing to replace a product with certain substitutes, i.e., how willing they are to conclude about a product they buy based on price if they do not have enough information about the product and how much zeros are favored by consumers when shopping, an empirical study was conducted on a sample of 214 respondents. The results of the research indicate that in moments when respondents do not have enough information about the product, they are not inclined to draw conclusions solely on the basis of price, and prices ending in odd numbers or non-zero are not more attractive than those ending in zero.

Namely, neuromarketing represents a branch of the application of neuroscience for marketing purposes and a modern method of studying brain reactions during marketing messages or consumer behavior. As an interdisciplinary science, it relies on the knowledge of a number of sciences: psychology, neurology, consumer psychology, neuropsychology, medicine, biology, marketing, but also the knowledge gained by sharing with them. It proved to be a more advanced method of marketing research than conventional (classical, traditional) techniques and methods (surveys, interviews, focus groups, stakeholders, etc.). Neuromarketing represents the application of neuroscience studies in the knowledge and explanation of subconscious dispositions of consumer behavior. For this purpose, it uses various brain scanning methods, techniques and devices that determine the brain reactions of consumers to marketing stimuli or certain products/services. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG) are most commonly used. In this sense, the main goal of this work is to indicate the possibilities of practical application of the techniques and methods used by neuromarketing. By following the reactions of certain parts of the brain and knowing their basic psychological functions, researchers and marketing experts are able to determine the type of psychological process (emotion) that occurs due to a certain stimulus. As a new theoretical concept of consumer behavior research, it causes many controversies and ethical dilemmas.

In the modern digital environment, where social networks represent a key communication channel, influencer marketing is growing into one of the dominant forms of advertising. Its ubiquity brings numerous advantages in terms of reach and perception of authenticity, but at the same time raises a number of ethical issues, especially related to transparency and accountability to consumers. Influencers, as modern opinion leaders, have transformed the relationship between brands and audiences, especially among younger generations – Generation Z and Generation Alpha – who increasingly trust influencer recommendations, as opposed to traditional forms of marketing. The central challenge of this form of promotion lies in ensuring a clear distinction between sponsored content and personal recommendations. Covert advertising, or unmarked commercial cooperation, can erode user trust and result in the perception of manipulation. Although legal frameworks in many countries prescribe mandatory labeling of sponsored content, their implementation remains uneven. Additional complexity to the ethical and communication challenges is introduced by artificially generated influencers (so-called AI influencers), who are becoming increasingly present thanks to their popularity on platforms such as TikTok. Their use further blurs the lines between real and simulated messages, especially in the perception of younger users, thus creating a need for new regulatory and educational approaches to protecting digital consumers.