Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to extend the theory of reasoned action and the theory of planned behaviour to measure the effects of ethical and moral antecedents (e.g. integrity, moral judgement, extrinsic religiosity and intrinsic religiosity, and ethical concern) on attitudes towards counterfeit luxury products. Additionally, it also measured the effects on attitudes towards purchase intention.Design/methodology/approach: The scope of the study is the Chinese market. The sample size for the study was 412 participants, and data were collected through established scales and measures. Structural equation modelling was used to test the developed model.Findings: All the developed hypotheses were accepted. All the antecedents negatively affect attitudes towards counterfeit luxury products. At the same time, attitude has a positive effect on purchase intention. The results are consistent with those of earlier studies.Research limitations/implications: Samples were gathered from just a single region in southwest China, which limits the generalisability of the discoveries. As past research in fake goods buying has done, future investigations relating to this situation in the domain of ethical reasoning should accumulate samples from other regions of China as well, as customer perception relating to profound morality and counterfeit Purchase Intention may change from region to region.Practical implications: A few customers hold the opinion that luxury brands are lucrative because of the excessive costs of their products and therefore feel vindicated in buying counterfeits (Penz and Stottinger, 2005). Combatting this conviction requires luxury brand managers to endorse effective moral ideals and social commitment messages to prevail upon purchasers.Social implications: A few customers trust that they are helping local people, such as the peddlers who offer the fakes or the producers who make these goods, suggesting in a way that a few individuals have positive attitudes towards these type of counterfeit goods sold locally. For such customers, there can be marketing messages that can show them the other side of the issue, such as the lost sales and loss caused to the organisations, which result in people becoming jobless because of their actions.Originality/value: The primary goal of the study is to explore the relationship between the moral measurements of consumers and their attitudes and purchase intentions in the Chinese market.

Purpose: Tourism via virtual reality (VR) technology has become an interesting option for consumers to “travel.” The best approaches to optimizing the VR tourism environment, improving the interactive experience of tourists and encouraging tourists to adopt VR are not yet fully understood. This study explores the willingness of tourists to adopt VR tourism from the dual aspects, richness and dynamics, of virtual social cues.Design/methodology/approach: To examine the effects of richness (multiple vs. few cues) and dynamic (changeable vs. static cues) on consumers' willingness to adopt VR tourism, three virtual tourism scenes were designed and presented by head-mounted displays. The data were collected for participants in the VR laboratory and tested by ANOVA and partial least squares–structural equation modeling.Findings: Virtual social cues can generate mental imagery through interactivity, vividness and parasocial interactions, thus increasing the consumer's likelihood of adopting VR tourism. It was also found that imagination moderates mental imagery and adoption intention. When the consumer's imagination is stronger, their mental imagery stimulates a stronger willingness to adopt VR tourism.Originality/value: The authors innovatively utilize concepts of parasocial interaction and mental imagery and discuss the various influences and mediation mechanisms of social cue characteristics on consumers' adoption of VR tourism. The conclusions may provide new insights for VR tourism managers and tourism scholars.

With the global pandemic of COVID-19, it has been striking psychological burdens on individuals. Under this background, more and more people get wellbeing by watching live broadcasts. However, the psychological mechanism behind this phenomenon is still a black box. This study finds that when people watch a live broadcast and interact with anchors and other people, an interaction ritual chain is formed, and emotional energy is generated, thus making people experience and understand the meaning of the live interaction ritual chains. Under the effect of the meaning transfer model, people will generate wellbeing. Specifically, the basic meaning of live interaction (emotional meaning and functional meaning) drives people’s generation of wellbeing. The meanings of self-participation, self-display, self-concept, and self-renewal play a role in mediation in enhancing people’s wellbeing with the basic meaning of live broadcast interaction.

Purpose: Driven by artificial intelligence technology, chatbots have begun to play an important customer service role in the online retail environment. This study aims to explore how conversational styles improve the interaction experience between consumers and chatbots in different social crowding environments, and the moderating role of product categories is considered.Design/methodology/approach: Three studies are conducted to understand the influences of conversational styles, social crowding and product categories on consumer acceptance, assessed using situational experiments and questions.Findings: In a low social crowding environment, consumers prefer chatbots with a social-oriented (vs. task-oriented) conversational style, while in a high social crowding environment, consumers prefer a task-oriented (vs. social-oriented) conversational style, and warmth and competence mediate these effects. The moderating effect of product categories is supported.Originality/value: This study expands the application of the stereotype content model to improve the interaction experience level between consumers and chatbots in online retail. The findings can provide managerial suggestions for retailers to select a chatbot's conversational style and promote a more continuous interaction between consumers and chatbots.