CHALLENGES IN PRESERVING BATIK AS INDONESIA'S CULTURAL IDENTITY FACING GLOBAL DEMAND OF SUSTAINABLE ECO-FRIENDLY FABRIC

摘要

Globalization is nothing but wortdwide interactions and exchanges, whether through technology, politics, culture or trade. With regard to trade itself, batik represents an important export unique to Indonesia, bearing a national pride but which is feared to have impacted by globalization as well as issues related to its quality as eco-friendly products. This paper has threefold purposes including the batik environmental quality and sustainability, examining the local community capacity and willingness to purchase batik products. The present research used primary data combined with secondary ones taken from interviews and questionnaires using purposive sampling with 125 respondents including batik owners in Solo, Central Java. The data were analyzed using Smart PLS Software 3.2.7 and SPSS 23 to test the reliability and validity. The results indicate that 65% of batik products are tested to have a significant correlation between consumers' willingness and batik environmental and sustainability aspects, with a value of 0.49 which is less than p ＜ 0.05. This research though has some limitations since only few variables were considered related to the environmental aspects. Future research is then suggested to expand further details on enlarging the data scope in other regions. This paper has a social implication as it builds a social information sharing meant to boost batik business. The concept used in this research model is new having its own originality value as it examines the batik environmental quality and sustainability.