Background While spending to prepare precollege students for engineering at universities increases, the number of engineering graduates continues to decrease, and attrition rates for engineering undergraduates remain high. Universities are motivated to understand the factors contributing to low retention of engineering undergraduates. Purpose/Hypothesis This article explores the experiences of four undergraduates who chose to leave engineering and provides insight into their reasons for leaving. Through attention to their experiences, this study captures participants' points of view as they explain how they made their decisions. Design/Method Students who recently left engineering were interviewed and completed a journey‐mapping exercise describing their motivations and experiences. Analysis identified institutional and individual factors that contributed to their decisions to leave. Results Common themes of nonpersisting engineering undergraduates included individual factors (such as poor performance, feeling unprepared for demands of the engineering program, difficulty fitting into engineering) and institutional factors (such as disappointment with engineering advising). Concepts uncovered in this article not present in existing research include an emotional attachment between participants and the concept of being an engineer, students' sense of loss and failure, and their easy transition from engineering to another major. Conclusions Individual factors leading to attrition include unwillingness of students to adapt to the rigor of the engineering program and loss of confidence due to poor performance. Institutional factors also contribute to attrition. The key to understanding why students leave engineering is at the confluence of institutional and individual factors.

The grounded theory method (GT) remains elusive and misunderstood by many-even those who advocate its use. In practice, many research studies cite the use of GT but merely apply certain a la carte aspects or jargon of the method while not actually incorporating the fundamental principles of the methodology. Consequently, the purpose of this article is fourfold: (a) to demystify the key tenets of GT, (b) to discuss the problematic impacts of adopting an a la carte approach to GT, (c) to draw attention to GT as a rigorous method for business research, and (d) to advocate for the increased use of GT by more researchers where appropriate. Throughout the article, the authors use the example of a recently completed GT study by the lead author to highlight the multiple dimensions of GT and how they all work together.

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If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -Specifically focusing on one antecedent (information seeker's characteristics) for electronic word-of-mouth adoption and credibility assessments, the purpose of this paper is to attempt to shed light on consumer motivations for making and taking online recommendations, and how technically savvy consumers assess credibility online. Design/methodology/approach -To investigate the role and influence of word-of-mouth (WOM) amongst technically savvy online consumers, purposeful sampling was used to limit participants to those who have made online purchases and who spend more than three hours a day on the internet. Using an adaptation of the grounded theory method, this study was triangulated via one face-to-face interview with each participant, member-checking, analysis of online communications deemed "not credible" by the participants, and through relevant literature from marketing and information systems (IS). Findings -Analysis shows that participants exhibit more of a "bricks-to-clicks" than a "clicks-to-bricks" purchasing cycle. In addition to relying on customer reviews online, participants accept online WOM to enhance their self-worth, avoid risk, or enact negativity bias. Additionally, assessment of online WOM credibility is based on four factors: the polarity and quantity of posts, the logic and articulation of posts, the ability to find corroborating sources, and the previous experience of participants with particular sellers. Originality/value -Previous research in WOM has not specifically explored how technically savvy consumers assess the credibility of online information and how these consumers may help to identify future trends for online customer exchanges. This qualitative study fills this gap. Conceptual framework and managerial implications are discussed.