This study focuses on the restorative effects of immersive virtual reality (VR) forest experiences on elderly people during the COVID-19 lockdown. A field experiment with 63 elderly participants was conducted in an elderly care institution in China. The results showed that a five-minute VR forest experience with three minutes of subsequent reliving can bring immediate psychological improvements (i.e., increased positive affect, decreased negative affect, and enhanced stress recovery) to elderly individuals. The negative affect decrease and stress recovery enhancement were more obvious among introverted individuals. Furthermore, participating in three VR forest experiences over 3 consecutive days can bring continuous psychological improvements. Moreover, short VR forest experiences were unable to significantly decrease the blood pressure of participants. The effects of three VR experiences over 3 days on blood pressure improvement were also nonsignificant. Additionally, VR forest experiences can increase elderly participants’ intentions to undertake real forest therapy.

Purpose Drawing on an evolutionary perspective, prior studies have revealed that conspicuous consumption by men has signaling functions (i.e. signaling the consumer’s positive mate qualities such as status and ability to acquire resources) for mate attraction. However, it is unclear whether conspicuous consumption of luxury products by women has a function in mate attraction. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of mate attraction goal on women’s interest in conspicuous consumption and the possible mediating effect of the attractiveness enhancement need in this effect. Design/methodology/approach A survey and two experimental studies were conducted in which 354 Chinese female undergraduates participated. In the survey, the respondents’ desire to have a romantic partner was measured; in the two experiments, the participants’ mate attraction goals were primed. The authors followed the literature to measure dependent variables (i.e. consumption measures), but the specific consumption items were adapted to meet the purpose of the current research. The authors analyzed the data from the three studies through analysis of variance, regression analysis and bootstrapping. Findings Young women with a strong (vs weak) desire for a romantic partner reported a high level of attractiveness enhancement needs, thereby indicating a higher willingness to pay (WTP ) for conspicuous items that can enhance their attractiveness (Studies 1 and 3). Furthermore, activating young women’s mate attraction goal can also increase their WTP for conspicuous items (Studies 2 and 3) and attractiveness enhancement items (Study 3) but not inconspicuous luxury product (e.g. underclothes) (Study 3). These findings suggested that young women consider conspicuous consumption of certain products as a means of enhancing attractiveness to acquire a desired mate. Originality/value This research identifies a novel function of conspicuous consumption: young women, especially those who do not have a romantic partner, may use conspicuous consumption of certain products to satisfy their attractiveness enhancement needs and, ultimately, to attract an ideal mate.

In this research we examined whether or not when men are exposed to sexual stimuli (e.g., images of sexually attractive women) this negatively affects their purchase intention for conspicuous goods being offered at a discounted price. We conducted 3 experiments, with Chinese men (282 in total), and found that sexual stimuli can activate male mating goals, prompting the men in our study to care more about the presentation of their mating value; thus, they preferred nondiscounted conspicuous goods to discounted ones. The negative effect of sexual stimuli on men's purchase intentions toward discounted conspicuous goods was greater for men who tended to associate discounts with low status, cheapness, and stinginess (i.e., strong negative impression association) than for those with a weak negative impression association. These findings identify the boundary conditions of a trade-off for men between economic benefits and signaling values for discounted conspicuous goods.

The diffusion of big data in recent years has stimulated many companies to develop big data analytics capability (BDAC) to boost innovation performance. However, research regarding how and when BDAC can increase innovation performance is still scant. This study aims to test how (i.e., the mediating role of strategic flexibility and strategic innovation) and when (i.e., the moderating role of environmental uncertainty) BDAC can boost a firm’s innovation performance drawing on resource-based theory. Through a survey of 421 Chinese managers and employees who are engaged in the field of big data analytics, this study reveals that (1) BDAC has a positive effect on innovation performance, (2) strategic flexibility and strategic innovation play a significant serial mediating role in this relationship, and (3) the positive effect of BDAC on innovation performance is more significant under high (vs. low) environmental uncertainty conditions. This study contributes to the extant literature by verifying how BDAC can increase a firm’s innovation performance through the serial mediating role of strategic flexibility and strategic innovation. It also confirms a contingent factor (i.e., environmental uncertainty) regarding the positive effect of BDAC on innovation performance.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine a possible negative spillover effect in sports sponsorship to answer whether the sponsored team’s poor performance will have a negative effect on audiences’ trust in its sponsor’s brand. The authors further analysed whether the audience’s attitude towards the team plays a mediating role and whether the audience’s personality type (active vs passive) plays a moderating role in this negative spillover effect. Design/methodology/approach Three experimental studies were conducted with 380 Chinese undergraduates and MBA student participants over two years. The authors designed the experiment as a computer-mediated intervention in which good, poor and neutral performance groups were compared. After the respondents were exposed to the intervention, we asked them to answer questions using a computer terminal. We analysed the data from the three experiments through analysis of variance (ANOVA), regression analysis and a bootstrap. Findings The audiences who were exposed to a team’s poor performance condition reported less trust in the sponsor’s brand relative to those exposed to a good performance condition, and the brand trust was even lower than for those who were exposed to a control condition (no performance information). Further, the audience’s negative attitude towards the sports team mediated the negative effect of the team’s poor performance on its sponsor’s brand trust. The negative effect was more obvious for individuals with Type A personalities (active) than for those with Type B personalities (passive). Originality/value The prior literature has neglected a possible negative effect of a sports team’s performance on its sponsor’s brand trust. In particular, questions of whether, how and when this negative effect occurs are critical for sponsors, teams, and audiences. Since sports team sponsorship is burgeoning in China, the negative implications are unclear in this new context. Thus, the revelation that the negative spillover effects of a team’s poor performance on audiences’ trust in the sponsor’s brand provides two original contributions. First, the negative effect reveals value for multiple sponsorship stakeholders. Second, the Chinese context in this study adds value for future research and practice regarding both Chinese-foreign and domestic Chinese decisions.