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Through an empirical analysis of a consumption community, the purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that the theories of gift-giving, sharing and commodity exchange should not be kept separated but integrated into a unifying model.

The paper provides new evidence about Bookcrossing.com, whose members share and give books as gifts; that is, physical goods rather than digital ones as in most of the communities considered in the literature. This community is analysed with qualitative tools, such as netnography, personal interviews and participant observation.

The main result of the analysis of Bookcrossing is that gift-giving is not the only process responsible for value creation and distribution in consumption communities: sharing and commodity exchange also play a role. Furthermore, the paper provides new evidence about aspects of gift-giving and sharing that have received limited attention in the literature: collective reciprocity and anonymous sharing.

The limitations are related to the intrinsic properties of the methods employed (netnography, personal interviews and participant observation) and to the paper, which analyses only one community and one product category. The implications refer to the role of gift-giving in consumption communities and its relationships with other processes: consumer gift systems are not only gifting platforms, but they and the elements of sharing and commodity exchange need to be integrated.

The empirical evidence and implications matter for the organisation and management of collaborative consumption platforms and the way in which traditional business models could and should interact with these platforms in an increasing number of businesses.

The paper adds new evidence of and original insights into gift-giving and collective forms of exchange. Moreover, it provides managerial implications of the analysed community for the book publishing industry.

The purpose of this research is to explore the nature of virtual tipping in live game streaming from the perspective of tippers.

This qualitative research involved six naturalistic group interviews with 27 young adult game streaming tippers in China.

The research revealed a typology of four virtual tipping exchanges – perfunctory exchange, transactional (commodity) exchange, relational (gift) exchange and hybrid exchange. The most notable finding is hybrid exchange, a synergistic hybrid of transaction and gift-giving.

The authors recommend that both streamers and streaming platforms acknowledge and accommodate both transactional and relational tipping motivations. The authors also recommend platforms to recruit skillful streamers with high emotional intelligence to better convert perfunctory tippers into tippers who tip more generously.

The result of hybrid exchange suggests going beyond the traditional commodity vs gift dichotomy to examine the potential market-gift complementary in a single exchange in the sharing economy.

Relational norms, referring to shared values about behavioral rules, distinguish communal and exchange relationships based on different reciprocal expectations between actors. This research explains how reciprocal expectations behind the two relationships trigger gift givers' disparate behavioral goals and further determine their gift choices.

The current work uses three lab experiments (N = 482) and one consumer survey (N = 422) to collect Chinese gifting data. Multiple data-analysis methods – crosstab analysis, ANOVA, linear regression and bootstrapping procedures – confirm the hypotheses.

Gift givers distinguish communal and exchange recipients. When selecting gifts for communal (exchange) recipients, people depended more strongly on rational analyses (intuition), preferring products superior on cognitive (affective) attributions. Further, givers primed to be rational decision-makers by anticipating that recipients would evaluate the gifts immediately in their presence, regardless of the communal or exchange context, preferred cognitively superior products.

From a managerial perspective, marketers can make targeted recommendations by highlighting the appropriate attribute dimension (cognitive or affective) after learning givers' reciprocal expectations.

This work contributes to the gift-giving literature by revealing the direct link between gifting goals and gift choices, extending the understanding of consumers' gift-selection strategies.

This study aims to explore the evolution of the culture agapic (personal) gift-giving with the advent of new online gifting platforms that provide the opportunity to gift tourism experiences. This study investigates this well-established cultural behavior in view of this new form of social exchange.

Focus group interviews with two key target markets – mothers and couples/singles – were conducted (N = 39). Interview questions focused on understanding gifting using online platforms, sharing the experience and the role of various parties in the exchange.

This study reveals that experiential tourism gifts differ from physical gifts because they offer novelty and symbolic value, heighten positive emotions and have the potential to create lifelong memories for recipients. However, giving an experiential gift can also be a risky option because of the uncertainty of getting the gift–recipient identity match correct, particularly for adventure tourism gifts. The identity of the gift-giver is also considered in gift selection as the experience selected is a reflection of self.

It is recommended that online experiential gifting platforms pay attention to both the identity of the gift-giver and gift-recipient. Sharing the experience through social media posts can reinforce both parties’ social identity, create a positive social exchange and may motivate repeat purchase.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to uncover the motivational factors of online tourism experiential gifting as part of the culture of gift-giving and the parties in this exchange. The findings advance theoretical understanding of this new form of social exchange.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the giving and receiving of gifts that are experiences rather than physical goods, and to illuminate how the behavioural processes in the selection, exchange and consumption of such intangible gifts might differ from the generic understanding of gift giving.

A trio of qualitative research methods – depth interviews, self‐completion written instrument, and semi‐structured telephone interviews – captured donor, recipient and industry expert perspectives, yielding a total of 189 real life incidents of experience gift exchange.

The model of experience gift‐giving behaviour encapsulates the behaviour of donors and recipients with sufficient flexibility to incorporate purchased, modified and donor‐created experiences, differing donor decision‐making styles, and immediate or delayed consumption. It is structured around the process stages of decision making, exchange, and post‐exchange/consumption/post‐consumption.

The empirical evidence is drawn from the UK, and is biased towards close personal relationships and experience gifts of higher monetary value.

Consumers in Western societies are actively giving gifts that are experiences. Greater understanding of their behaviour in this marketplace – as evidenced in the paper – will enhance marketing practice for those service organisations recognising the gift potential of their products.

This research is believed to be the first to examine the phenomenon of experiences as gifts – a theoretical contribution that starts to close the gap between real world consumer behaviour and corresponding academic knowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the recipient side of gift exchange by establishing the combination/level of gift benefits preferred by the recipient. It investigates the association between these benefits and the nature of the relationship between the gift giver and recipient.

A total of 250 people were surveyed about a recent gift receipt experience. Levels of symbolic, experiential, and functional benefits sought from the gift were established. Canonical correlation was used to analyse the interrelationships of relational variables (relationship type, strength, and length) and the preferred gift benefits.

People prefer gifts with a greater symbolic meaning (see with lower levels of functional and experiential benefits) from people close to them. People who have not known each other for long, but have a strong emotional connection, prefer gifts that are primarily functional. It shows that benefit associations are significant to gift recipients, the type of relationship the recipient is in has a significant effect on the desired combined level of benefit associations, and the symbolism of meaning for gifts can be expressed through benefit associations.

Studies of gift exchange focus on the gift giver and the benefits gained from the act of giving. The results show that the exchange process used by sociologists and consumer behaviorists to describe and explain gift‐giving activity cannot assume the same levels of benefits associated with the gift occurring on each side of the exchange. It is also shown for the first time that the type of giver, and the relationship the recipient has with the giver, will modify recipient preferences.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how the relationship of gifts/counter-gifts between actors enables us to build an HRM policy that we call “shared and ethical”. It is shared because it is co-constructed by both owner-manager and employees, and ethical because it is deemed desirable by the players and meets their expectations. This approach aims to make HRM more responsible in view of the commitments made by stakeholders.

Drawing upon the Maussian theory of gift/counter-gift, a longitudinal and retrospective study was conducted over a period of three years with a French SME.

The authors highlight two key stages in the gift process: the initial gift of the owner-manager, which is reflected in the establishment of a social pact, and the gap in perception between employees’ contribution and the counter-gift expected of the owner-manager. The authors show the complexity of the gift-chain by building a shared and ethical HRM and highlight the tensions identified between the existence of tools and mutual adjustments in HRM through gifts and counter-gifts.

Usual HRM in SMEs is centred on the owner-manager. On the contrary this research highlights how an SME can develop an alternative HRM. A longitudinal and retrospective study, carried out with a French SME, led to the construction of a process modelling of a shared HRM ethics.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the relation between human resource management (HRM) and innovation in small to medium size enterprises (SMEs) through gift/counter-gift exchanges.

Using the theory of the gift/counter-gift, the authors study the case of a French SME, specifically, a technological innovation project developed from 2013 to 2016. The authors structure the data and create a model using the Gioia method.

The results reveal that the logic of giving evolves in three key stages: freeing up gifts, mobilizing gifts and rethinking gifts.

These stages highlight the importance of an enabling organizational environment, gift/counter-gift relationships and the role of a number of HRM practices.

From a relational perspective, this research aims to answer the following question: How can human resource management (HRM) and innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) be articulated at different levels through gift/counter–gift relationships?

The authors' longitudinal and exploratory study was conducted in an innovative SME that constitutes an “emblematic” case. The data were gathered from diverse sources: 2 life stories, 21 semi-structured interviews, observations and documentary analyses.

The results provide a dynamic view of the relationship between HRM and innovation through multi-level analysis. The authors consequently propose a three-step process: freeing up, mobilizing and rethinking gifts.

This article examines how to articulate HRM and innovation in SMEs through gift/counter-gift theory. This relationship is analyzed from a relational and multi-level perspective.

This study aims to investigate the random collection of items for gifting which are stored in one’s home in a special place. Traditional gift-giving models suggest gift givers buy gifts for certain recipients on certain occasions. This study ' s journey into gift storage finds that some gift-giving practices are initially acquisition-less, recipient-less and/or occasion-less.

Based on a convenience sample of 111, the main functions and motivations for gift storage are described. From a free elicitation process of gift-closet attributes, a first account of the symbolic meanings that gift storage is embedded in is provided.

Seventy-seven per cent per cent of the sample had a gift closet where they stored gifts for which either the occasion or the recipient was not known at the time of acquisition. According to these gift-closet owners, the main purposes of gift closets are convenience, thrift and to have a place for surplus or shopping items.

While it makes sense to some consumers to prepare for future gift-giving occasions by stockpiling items in gift closets, the results indicate that storage may affect the symbolic value of the gift and, ultimately, the development of social ties. Consumers who gift from the closet believe that there are few negatives involved. However, people who do not have gift closets and receive gifts which they suspect are from storage may perceive a lack of caring and even feel insulted.

Due to the unexplored nature of gift storage, the results reported in this paper represent a first exploratory account of gift storage and its possible effects on the relationship-building capacity of gifts.