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The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the factors driving and mitigating the experienced vulnerabilities of women undergoing the transformative service of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF), and how this influences women’s evaluations and intentions.

The conceptual framework was tested using quantitative data collected via an online survey of Australian women who have undergone IVF treatment. Hayes’ PROCESS macro was used to analyse the data.

The results indicate that women’s persistent goal-striving alongside their perceived personal sacrifices influence the association between their need for parenthood and their experienced vulnerability. Institutional factors such as IVF clinic technical and interpersonal quality influence these consumers’ IVF experience evaluations and word-of-mouth (WoM) intentions.

This study’s results are limited to women who are undergoing IVF treatment. Further empirical work is needed to deepen the understanding of the role played by partners and other family members in women’s IVF experiences.

IVF clinics can reduce women’s experienced vulnerability by encouraging women who have a good probability of succeeding to persist in the pursuit of the goal of conceiving a child via IVF. This can be achieved by enabling and empowering them so that they give themselves the best chance during treatment, thus facilitating their control. Managing the expectations of those women with a lower probability of success is also recommended. The importance of the technical and interpersonal quality delivered by IVF clinics in influencing the positive evaluations and behavioural intentions of women experiencing vulnerabilities is further highlighted.

This study contributes to the transformative service research literature by: examining the IVF transformative experience, which has been largely overlooked; focussing on the intersection of transformative services and consumers experiencing vulnerability, which is an emerging research area; and testing a framework quantitatively that intermingles individual and institutional factors as antecedents and consequences of consumers’ experienced vulnerabilities, advancing the existing conceptual and qualitative work.

This study evaluates the usefulness of a multidimensional conceptualization of organizational commitment in the public accounting environment and examines the influence of mentoring relationships on each of these dimensions. An integrated examination of antecedent variables for each of the dimensions of organizational commitment, as well as the consequence of intention to leave the public accounting organization, was conducted. Results suggest that while organizational commitment in the public accounting environment can be conceptualized in terms of affective, moral and economic attachment to the firm, affective commitment is the most descriptive of these constructs. While mentoring relationships have a positive impact on each of the dimensions of commitment, affective commitment is most influenced. Affective commitment in the public accounting workplace develops as a result of distinct antecedent experiences and has direct implications for the consequence of interest and intentions to leave.

This paper builds on previous research in information systems (IS) project management by focusing on key antecedents proposed to play important roles in influencing normative commitment within the IS project environment. The study also further investigates the influence of normative commitment on intentions to continue.

To collect data for this study, a field survey was administered online, and individuals were selected for participation by a member of upper management from Fortune 500 companies located in the United States. Two-hundred and thirty two (232) survey responses were collected. The model was analyzed using PLS-SEM.

The results indicated that personal investment, personal responsibility, voluntariness, project-specific self-efficacy and problem-solving competency were all significantly related to normative commitment. Project-specific self-efficacy, problem-solving competency and normative commitment directly influenced intention to continue. Additionally, problem-solving competency moderated both the relationships of project-specific self-efficacy to normative commitment and project-specific self-efficacy to intention to continue. The resulting model explains 63% of intention to continue and 58% of normative commitment.

The findings from this study contribute to commitment theory and enhance one’s understanding of IS project environments by exploring specific antecedents related to developing normative commitment. Additionally, the impact of normative commitment on intention to continue was enhanced by examining key moderating relationships to the model.

This paper evaluates the utility of a multidimensional conceptualization of organizational commitment in the public accounting environment. Also examines a wide range of antecedent variables for each of the three dimensions of organizational commitment, as well as the consequence of intention to leave the public accounting organization. Results suggest that organizational commitment in the public accounting environment can be conceptualized in terms of affective, moral and economic attachment to the firm. Each of these kinds of commitment develops as a result of distinct antecedent experiences and has different implications for accountants' intentions to leave. The results suggest that affective commitment is the best predictor of intention to leave.

The overall purpose of the study is to build upon and add to a turnover model for public accounting. This study examines two components of organizational commitment, affective and continuance, and attempts to reconcile mixed results found in prior studies. An interaction of the two components and the personality trait of hardiness are explored.

One hundred and twenty‐eight public accountants from three firms participated in the study by completing self‐report questionnaires. Established scales for the variables of interest were employed, and OLS regression was used to test hypotheses.

The results indicate that affective commitment is the most salient component of commitment in predicting turnover, but an interaction of continuance and affective commitment is also significant. The results also indicate that hardiness is a significant personality variable in predicting turnover.

Generalizability of results may be limited as participation was limited to three firms. Theoretical implications include establishing the relative saliency of the commitment components to turnover in public accountants and building the turnover model by adding a commitment interaction and personality hardiness.

Management of public accounting firms can better focus on strategy to emotionally attach individuals to a firm and prevent undesirable turnover. To better assist recruiters in hiring, firms can incorporate hardiness into its pre‐hire fit assessment to gauge compatibility.

In addition to clarifying results from prior studies, this paper introduces interactive commitment and personality hardiness to a model of public accounting turnover.

To explore the mediating role of altruism in the relationship between self‐sacrifice and transformational leadership, and to look at the effect of all three on followers' collective identity and perceptions of unit performance.

For Study 1, survey responses were collected from 127 managers in India. They answered questions on their leader's self‐sacrifice, altruism, and transformational leadership, and on their own collective identity and perceptions of unit performance. Study 2 used a scenario experiment and 161 students to manipulate self‐sacrifice and altruism and measure their effects on transformational leadership, collective identity and perceived unit performance.

It is possible to distinguish between self‐sacrifice and altruism empirically. Altruism mediates the relationship between self‐sacrifice and transformational leadership. Transformational leadership is positively related to followers' collective identity and perceived unit performance.

Common source bias may have affected the findings. Use of student sample in Study 2 limits the generalizability of findings.

Other‐orientedness (altruism) of a manager enhances transformational leadership, which in turn leads to higher collective identity and perceived unit performance. Self‐sacrifice could be a good starting point in this chain of events.

Studies have shown that self‐sacrifice enhances transformational leadership. This paper highlights the mediating process through altruism. This is the first empirical study to look at the relationship between altruism and transformational leadership. This is also the first study to look at self‐sacrifice and altruism simultaneously.

This paper aims to present a model linking price promotions to checkout donations. It is argued that price promotions evoke two perceptions/emotions, namely, feelings of gratitude and perceived sacrifice of purchase, which consequently, influence the likelihood to donate. Feelings of gratitude dominate when the discount is high, while feelings of sacrifice dominate when the discount is low. Compared to no-discount situations, high discounts enhance consumers’ intention to donate while low discounts reduce this intention.

A total of four studies using shopping scenarios are conducted. Study 1 examines the main effect and the mediating factors. Study 2 replicates the findings in different product categories and at different unit-price levels. Studies 3 and 4 test the moderating effects of customer effort and discount framing.

Findings of the four studies provide support for the proposed model. Compared to no-discount situations, high discounts enhance consumers’ intention to donate, while low discounts reduce this intention. The effects are mediated by feelings of gratitude and sacrifice and moderated by effort obtaining the discount and format of the discount.

Theoretically, this research advances the understanding of consumers’ interpretations of price promotions. All studies are conducted in an online context.

This research informs retailers and charity institutions on the best timing for soliciting checkout donations and indicates specific tactics to enhance consumers’ donations.

This is the first study linking price discounts to the growing phenomenon of checkout donations. The research is different from cause marketing where the donation is included in the price of a specific product. The work also differs from studies examining the spillover effect where additional purchases benefit the consumers instead of a cause.

This chapter summarizes the behavioral pricing research findings of price and how buyers respond to price. This includes the relationship between price and perceived value and the decision heuristics that help us understand how price influences perceptions of value and eventual product choice. Buyers also use price as an indicator of product quality, and customers’ perceptions of quality, benefits, and value affect how they will respond to a purchase situation. In addition, buyers’ perceptions of the sacrifice affect the purchase decision, that is the degree that consumers reflect on the amount that they would “give up” by paying the monetary price for a product may vary according to a variety of situations and conditions, such as type of product or service, or the perceived unfairness of the price, or if the buyer perceives a brand is superior to competing brands. The chapter also discusses how buyers trade off or compare the perceived gains arising from price-quality judgments versus the perceived sacrifice required to acquire the product or service, including whether buyers integrate price and other attribute information following a nonlinear (proportional) or linear (subtractive) process. It also summarizes research on price as a multidimensional attribute, considered with additional dimensions such as warranty coverage, and warrantor reputation. Finally, the chapter examines perceived product value as being decomposed into its (1) perceived acquisition value (the expected benefit to be gained from acquiring the product less the net displeasure of paying for it) and (2) perceived transaction value (the perceived merits or fairness of the offer or deal).

This paper seeks to address the question of “why some people choose to be an entrepreneur?” It offers a novel perspective in the strand of cognitive models to examine the formation of entrepreneurial intention.

Data for this research came from a questionnaire survey of university students in Shanghai, Zhejiang and Hubei provinces. The conceptual model is tested using the method of structural equation modelling on a sample of 415 university students.

The research confirms that perceived benefits of entrepreneurship have positive and statistically significant effects on perceived value of entrepreneurship and that perceived sacrifices of entrepreneurship in terms of non‐economic sacrifices have negative and statistically significant effects on perceived value of entrepreneurship.

The paper proposes a new construct of perceived value of entrepreneurship to explain the formation of entrepreneurial intention. Building on the concept of value perception from the marketing literature, it conceptualized the perceived value of entrepreneurship in benefit‐sacrifice components and empirically tested the argument that entrepreneurship‐related career decision making is a cognitive process in which entrepreneurial intention results from a cognitive trade‐off between perceived benefits and perceived sacrifices.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how consumers’ value evaluation and personality factors influence consumers’ intention to adopt mobile coupon (M-coupon) applications in China. The moderating effect of gender on the relationships between personality factors and consumers’ adoption intention is also tested.

This study conducted a survey to collect data from M-coupon application users. In total, 271 valid responses were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) technology.

The results indicate that perceived value, personal innovativeness, and coupon proneness positively affect consumers’ acceptance of M-coupon applications. Personal innovativeness has more positive impact on behavioral intention for males than for females. However, the differential effects of coupon proneness on behavioral intention are not significant between males and females. In addition, the findings show that perceived convenience, perceived enjoyment, and perceived money savings positively influence perceived value, whereas perceived fees and perceived privacy risk negatively influence it.

This study helps M-coupon application providers to identify who is positive toward their services and how to improve consumers’ perceived value of the services, eventually expanding their user base.

Prior studies mainly focussed on the usage behavior of M-coupons and overlooked the important role of M-coupon applications in promoting M-coupon use. This research fills this gap. The research findings offer insights into the factors influencing consumers’ behavioral intention to adopt M-coupon applications. Besides, the results of gender’s moderating effect advance the understanding of the differences in males’ coupon usage intentions between the contexts of M-coupon applications and paper-based coupon services, which enrich couponing research.