With the rising trend toward sustainable consumption and the pivotal role of social media in the buying behavior, brands are keen to promote sustainable products through these platforms. Virtual influencers (VIs) have emerged as lower-cost and scandal-resistant alternatives to human influencers (HIs). However, their artificial nature may evoke credibility concerns, potentially undermining marketing effectiveness. Currently, it is unclear whether humans or virtual influencers achieve better endorsement outcomes for sustainable products. This study explores the effectiveness of VIs and HIs in endorsing sustainable products and the conditions under which VIs may outperform HIs. Through two studies (N = 1097), we investigate the impact of influencer type, advertising appeals, and product involvement on consumer purchase intentions and brand attitudes. Our findings reveal that, in low-involvement product scenarios with emotional appeals, HIs are more effective, while in high-involvement product scenarios featuring rational appeals, VIs exhibit superior effectiveness. These results suggest that the choice of influencer type should be tailored to the product involvement level and the nature of the advertising appeal, providing guidance for brands to enhance the impact of their green marketing strategies.

The research examines how leadership humor affects work value and performance specifically within the context of Shandong China. Leadership practices that use humor have become a subject of rising interest because they show promise to shape both workplace environments employee motivation and organizational success. The analysis combines research from three different sources including published scholarly publications along with company reports and existing studies to examine the work value effects of humorous leadership approaches. Researchers used thematic analysis to determine prominent data patterns that explain how humor affects leadership success as well as group unity and performance outcomes. The study indicates that leadership executed through humor enhances job quality but also found a better result block in an outcome that these two ultimately affect jointly. Humor is a major key and is a mode of creativity that is often used to deflect anxiety and raise company morale. The study makes an important contribution to the use of humor as a strategic leadership practice that enhances organizational performance. This study concludes that Shandong businesses should adopt the fun leadership strategy as it positively affects the outcome of worker productivity and organization.