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This study investigates the antecedents of career initiative, a proactive behavior, whereby individuals engage in activities to promote their career development. The authors first argue that organizational tenure – the length of time employed within a specific organization – will exhibit a curvilinear or inverted-U-shaped relationship with career initiative. In the early years of an employment relationship, career initiative gradually increases as employees overcome the initial challenges of joining a new organization. However, career initiative will plateau and eventually decline as employees struggle to envision further development.

This study uses a survey design with data collected from the North American operations of a large global telecommunications company.

This study identifies two key mechanisms, both concerning relational context, that drive the curvilinear relationship between organizational tenure and career initiative: mentoring and barriers to networking. Specifically, increased mentoring and reduced barriers to networking both significantly weaken the curvilinear effect.

The results suggest that organizations can promote proactive behaviors through employee mentoring and by removing network barriers, particularly for those most at risk for reduced career initiative: early- and especially later-tenure employees.

Career initiative is a valued behavior among employees, but individual-level phenomena can be fostered, or inhibited, by relational context. So, while some scholars have found a trend toward “boundaryless” careers, this study reveals the importance of considering how the boundaries and social context within organizations can create an environment in which employee proactivity can flourish.

The work-from-home scheme (WFH) is increasingly being adopted in service firms. However, the blurred border between employees’ work and life can create work–life conflict (WLC) that negatively affects their well-being. Therefore, identifying factors that help employees overcome WLC and nurture their well-being is imperative. From a transformative service research (TSR) and personal psychology perspective, this study aims to explore the roles of service employee state of mindfulness and resilience in reducing WLC, alleviating its negative effects and ultimately nurturing their happiness.

A structural model was proposed. Data were collected from 339 WFH employees in various knowledge-based services such as professional services, information, education and training, financial consulting and marketing. Direct, indirect, mediating and moderating effects were estimated using the CB-SEM method.

Mindfulness is the overarching capability that helps reduce WLC and raise resilience. It nurtures WFH employee happiness not only directly but also via the mediation of resilience and WLC. Resilience, on the other hand, mediates the effect of mindfulness on happiness and moderates the negative impact of WLC on happiness.

Firms are recommended to organize mindfulness and resilience training programs, and encourage organizational- and job-related facilitators. WFH employees should actively participate in such programs and add them to their to-do-list practices.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first empirical studies of employee mindfulness and resilience in the WFH context. It contributes to the TSR research stream and enriches the concepts of mindfulness and resilience by elucidating different mechanisms in which each of these personal qualities operates to help employees nurture happiness in this specific working condition.

This paper aims to understand the maternal health vulnerabilities of migrant women in slums and explore their challenges during and after childbirth.

The study used a qualitative approach, including in-depth interviews through purposive and snowball sampling techniques. Thematic analysis was used for analysing data. The consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative studies (COREQ)-32 items were followed for reporting this study.

The study found that migrant women were highly susceptible to adverse birthing outcomes due to risks involved in birthing, lack of care and hygiene, lack of skilled care in dealing with complicated pregnancies and exposure to domestic and obstetric violence.

The study intends to highlight the narratives of female migrants’ birthing and maternal health challenges. The entire process of childbirth in slums with consequences can result in maternal and infant morbidities and mortalities.

This paper delves into evaluating the effectiveness of warning messages as a deterrent against excessive fat consumption. It examines how consumers perceive the fat content of food products when presented with two distinct label types: (1) a textual warning, providing succinct information about the fat content, and (2) a pictorial warning, offering a visual representation that immediately signifies the fat content.

Two quantitative studies were carried out. Study 1 employed a questionnaire to evaluate the efficacy of textual and pictorial warning messages on high- and low-fat food products. Similarly, Study 2 replicated this comparison while incorporating a neuromarketing instrument to gauge participants’ cerebral reactions.

Results indicate that pictorial warnings on high-fat foods significantly deter consumers’ purchasing intentions. Notably, these pictorial warnings stimulate the left prefrontal area of the cerebral cortex, inducing negative emotions in consumers and driving them away from high-fat food items.

While the influence of images over text in shaping consumer decisions is well understood in marketing, this study accentuates the underlying mechanism of such an impact through the elicitation of negative emotions. By understanding this emotional pathway, the paper presents fresh academic and managerial perspectives, underscoring the potency of pictorial warnings in guiding consumers towards healthier food choices.

1. Textual warnings do not seem to discourage high-fat product consumption.

2. A pictorial warning represents the fat content of an equivalent product.

3. Pictorial warnings decrease the intention to purchase a high-fat product.

4. Pictorial warnings determine an increase in negative emotions.

Textual warnings do not seem to discourage high-fat product consumption.

A pictorial warning represents the fat content of an equivalent product.

Pictorial warnings decrease the intention to purchase a high-fat product.

Pictorial warnings determine an increase in negative emotions.

Refugees and asylum seekers worldwide face numerous barriers in accessing health systems. The evidence base regarding who and what helps refugees and asylum seekers facilitate access to and the navigation of the health system in the UK is small. This study aims to address this gap by analysing 14 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with refugees and asylum seekers of different countries of origin in the UK to identify where, when and how they came into contact with the health-care system and what the outcome of these interactions was.

Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were chosen as the key method for this study. In total, 14 individual interviews were conducted. A trauma-informed research approach was applied to reduce the risk of re-traumatising participants.

The paper identifies key obstacles as well as “facilitators” of refugees’ and asylum seekers’ health-care experience in the UK and suggests that host families, friends and third-party organisations all play an important role in ensuring refugees and asylum seekers receive the healthcare they need.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first qualitative study in the UK that looks at comprehensive health journeys of refugees from their first encounter with health services through to secondary care, highlighting the important role along the way of facilitators such as host families, friends and third-party organisations.

The purpose of this study is to explore the strength and value-relevance of social capital in an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) provides a new perspective to explaining the configurations and interactions that shape entrepreneurial outcomes in regions. Research on the nature of interactions in EEs is still an ongoing debate. The authors draw from “organisational fields” studies to critically examine the interactions among actors in a non-transparent EE using the case of the Lagos region.

The methodology is based on a qualitative study of 40 semi-structured interviews with various ecosystem actors in the Lagos region, including financiers, government officials, universities, founders and venture capitalists. Additionally, data from the semi-structured interviews were triangulated with data obtained from a two-day focus group discussion Summit where Lagos’ EE issues were raised. This study analysed both data using thematic analysis.

This study suggests that in a non-transparent EE, four types of interactions are apparent: collaborative, stratified, clustered and unleveraged. Authors argue that in a non-transparent EE, there are blockages and distortions in the flow of resources to entrepreneurs and a higher proportion of entrepreneurs are unable to plug into the ecosystem to extract value for their businesses without a strong social capital.

The authors argue that entrepreneurs require deliberate effort to improve structural and relational social capital to plug into their ecosystem to extract value for their businesses.

The focus on interaction in a non-transparent EE is a novel approach to studying interactions within EEs. In addition, the study is an early attempt to explore entrepreneurial interactions within the Lagos region.

The present paper aims at the identification of the critical variables of risk-based auditing (RBA). The variables under examination are the internal audit (IA), the audit committee (AC) and the cooperation between the RBA and the stakeholders (audit committee, external auditors, internal auditors, board of directors, fraud investigators, chief risk manager) (COOP).

A questionnaire survey was conducted among 176 Greek companies. The questionnaires were addressed to accountants, internal auditors, managers, chief risk managers and the board of directors. A total of 96 questionnaires have been collected and analyzed. PLS-SEM modeling was used as a tool to test hypotheses and analyze the findings.

The results show that three variables, i.e. the internal audit, the audit committee and the RBA cooperation with stakeholders have a statistically significant and positive effect on risk-based auditing (RBA). Additionally, the existence of partial-complementary mediation of the internal audit in the audit committee-RBA interaction is confirmed.

This study is an original research that identifies the essential variables of risk-based auditing in Greek companies. It attempts to analyze the perceptions of all stakeholders in risk-based auditing, including the internal audit, the audit committee, etc. and is not restricted only on internal auditors. Furthermore, the analysis is conducted with PLS-SEM Modeling, which is an innovative tool of testing hypotheses and analyzing results.

This study investigates theoretical relationships among personality characteristics, preferences for different types of rewards and the propensity to choose a job in auditing by management-related higher education students. Specifically, the authors consider motivation, locus of control (internal and external) and self-efficacy (SE) as personality characteristics and financial, extrinsic, support and intrinsic as types of rewards.

Data were collected through a questionnaire targeted at management-related higher education students in Portugal. Partial least squares structural equation modelling was used to analyse the data.

The full sample results show that different types of motivation, locus of control and SE are related to different reward preferences. The authors also find a positive association between a preference for extrinsic rewards and the propensity to choose a job in auditing. Moreover, when the authors consider the role of working experience in the model, the authors find that the reward preferences that drive the choice of an auditing job differ according to that experience.

This study enriches the literature by assessing preferences for different types of rewards, considering multiple personality characteristics and a comprehensive set of rewards. Furthermore, the authors identify the reward preferences that drive the choice of an auditing career. This knowledge empowers auditing firms to devise recruitment strategies that resonate with candidates’ preferences, which boosts the capacity of these companies to attract new auditors.

Despite the increasing interest in the metaverse—immersive three-dimensional virtual worlds wherein personalized avatars interact with one another—little is known about how users cognitively appraise and emotionally experience it. To fill this gap, the present study explores the emotional, behavioral and social consequences of users' cognitive appraisals, while focusing on social virtual reality (VR) as a representative entry point to the metaverse.

Drawing on cognitive appraisal theory against the backdrop of a framework for classifying emotions, this study develops and tests a theoretical model to account for users' continuance intention and its consequences in the social VR context based on two-wave panel survey data collected from 216 users of social VR platforms, including AltspaceVR, VRChat, Bigscreen and Rec Room.

The results of the first survey showed that perceived opportunity was more strongly influenced by technological opportunity than social opportunity, whereas perceived threat was more strongly affected by social threat than technological threat. Integrating the data collected from the first survey with those of the second survey, we also found that users' continuance intention positively influenced both their behavioral engagement and social self-efficacy.

By adopting a longitudinal approach, this study provides insights that may be valuable to researchers and practitioners who seek to use social VR for business purposes. This study also contributes to the metaverse literature by conceptualizing and operationalizing the opportunity and threat factors of social VR and identifying salient emotions that users experience in this context. Finally, this study has practical implications for addressing the social and technological features that may cause adverse user experiences in social VR.

Following behavioral finance and monetary wisdom, the authors theorize: Decision-makers (investors) adopt deep-rooted personal values (the love-of-money attitudes/avaricious financial aspirations) as a lens to frame critical concerns (short-term and long-term investment decisions) in the immediate-proximal (current income) and distal-omnibus (future inheritance) contexts to maximize expected utility and ultimate serenity across context, people and time.

The authors collected data from 277 active equity traders (professional money managers and individual investors) in Pakistan’s two most robust investment hubs—Karachi and Lahore. The authors measured their love-of-money attitude (avaricious monetary aspirations), short-term and long-term investment decisions and demographic variables and collected data during Pakistan's bear markets (Pakistan Stock Exchange, PSX-100).

Investors’ love of money relates to short-term and long-term decisions. However, these relationships are significant for money managers but non-significant for individual investors. Further, investors’ current income moderates this relationship for short-term investment decisions but not long-term decisions. The intensity of the aspirations-to-short-term investment relationship is much higher for investors with low-income levels than those with average and high-income levels. Future inheritance moderates the relationships between aspirations and short-term and long-term decisions. Regardless of their love-of-money orientations, investors with future inheritance have higher magnitudes of short-term and long-term investments than those without future inheritance. The intensity of the aspirations-to-investments relationship is more potent for investors without future inheritance than those with inheritance. Investors with low avaricious monetary aspirations and without inheritance expectations show the lowest short-term and long-term investment decisions. Investors' current income and future inheritance moderate the relationships between their love of money attitude and short-term and long-term decisions differently in Pakistan's bear markets.

The authors help investors make financial decisions and help financial institutions, asset management companies, brokerage houses and investment banks identify marketing strategies and investor segmentation and provide individualized services.

Professional money managers have a stronger short-term orientation than individual investors. Lack of wealth (current income and future inheritance) motivates greedy investors to take more risks and become more vulnerable than non-greedy ones—investors’ financial resources and wealth matter. The Matthew Effect in investment decisions exists in Pakistan’s emerging economy.