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This paper aims to analyze corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices from the epistemological position advocated by the MAUSS. The latter, beyond paying tribute to Marcel Mauss, refers to the project of combating all utilitarian and economistic reductionism.

This paper discusses the question of the definition of CSR practices by basing the analysis on the definition proposed by Etogo, which considers CSR practices as all forms of key-giving transactions, material or immaterial, which update the primary and secondary links between the company and its human and non-human environment.

The sociology of CSR practices is seeking the notion of gift in companies which are places of profit and utilitarian calculus. This research emphasizes that the triple duty of giving-receiving-returning structures CSR practices. The approach extends the perspective of Godbout’s gift, which recalls how Homo donator, along with Crozier and Friedberg’s Homo strategus, is at the center of CSR practices.

The proposed approach comes up against a particular limit. Despite its sociological fruitfulness, the gift paradigm is not immediately operational from a managerial point of view.

This reflection suggests to consider that CSR practices participate in a form of reconfiguration of the efficiency of the company insofar as they call into question the partial analysis of the efficiency of the company for the benefit of the shareholders. For CSR practices to be effective, managers must understand the interdependence between society and business: the well-being of society and business development cannot be opposed. Managers therefore need to integrate CSR practices into the company's strategy.

This reflection can have interesting implications in terms of building citizen identity. Specifically, it is a question of rebalancing the link between social and economic logics, by legitimizing the social utility of companies as well as their involvement in the organization and functioning of the city.

This note seeks to emphasize the fecundity of the epistemological position advocated by the MAUSS to reconstruct the role of CSR practices by adopting a balanced approach.

A pooled income fund (PIF) is one of the methods created under the 1969 Tax Reform Act whereby a taxpayer may make a tax‐deductible remainder gift to a charitable organization. The fund, established by a charitable organization to receive irrevocable gifts from at least two donors, pays current income to the individual beneficiaries for life, but at the termination of each income interest, the allocable principal must revert permanently to the charitable organization. In recent years, a number of PIFs have been offered to the public by charitable organizations through broker‐dealers or related entities. There are numerous securities‐law issues implicated by the sales of these PIFs, including: (i) whether broker‐dealers may solicit donations to such funds and receive compensation for their solicitations; (ii) the effect of the broker‐dealers’ solicitation and receipt of compensation have on securities registration for the PIF or units offered therein under the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, or the Investment Company Act of 1940; (iii) whether staff and persons affiliated with the sponsoring charity, including parties assisting them in the marketing of such pooled income funds, also should be permitted to solicit donations; (iv) whether such charities or persons, or parties assisting them in the marketing of such pooled income funds, then should be required to register as broker‐dealers; (v) what securities licenses may be required of the aforementioned parties; and (vi) whether there are ways to design the manner in which third parties other than broker dealers are compensated to resolve any potential issues arising from answers to the previous questions. This article first sets forth the applicable law involved in the analysis and then attempts to answer each of the issues presented above.

This paper aims to examine whether consumers’ appreciation of promotional gifts exceeds firms’ cost of providing these gifts. The paper also compares characteristics of appreciated and unappreciated gifts.

The authors surveyed 1,289 college students in five European countries. The authors use willingness to accept cash (WTA) for an item to assess consumers’ appreciation of promotional gifts. They then compare WTA to firms’ estimated cost of providing the gifts.

On average, consumers’ appreciation of promotional gifts is 2.4 times the estimated cost of these gifts to sellers. Appreciated gifts tend to be less costly, tend to accompany more expensive purchased items and are more likely to complement these items. The results also reveal that more expensive items come with more costly gifts, although the gifts’ cost increases less than proportionally with the associated items’ price. The gift items are appreciated by men more than women.

This study enriches the literature on promotional gifting by introducing a simple measurement that can help firms decide whether to use gifts or discounts to promote their products.

This research focuses on the role of product acquisition cues in positive word-of-mouth (PWOM) content on social media, comparing the characteristics of different sources of product acquisition (purchased vs. gifted) and exploring whether and how they affect consumers' reliance on word-of-mouth (WOM).

The research model was developed based on the mental imagery theory. Two offline experiments and two online experiments were used to test the proposed hypotheses.

The results show that, compared to the purchased source, the gifted source evokes more positive mental imagery and greater emotional attachment to the product, resulting in greater consumer reliance on PWOM. In addition, the effect of the source of product acquisition on reliance on PWOM was stronger for experiential (vs. material) products and for consumers with higher interdependent (vs. independent) self-construal.

This research highlights the role of product acquisition cues in PWOM in influencing consumers' evaluation of WOM, while also revealing the processes inherent in how consumers process information through mental imagery. The findings provide a more comprehensive understanding of the antecedents of reliance on WOM and offer new insights and recommendations for management practitioners.

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.

This study aims to investigate an individual’s boundary crossing with regard to bribery, gifts and favouritism in rewarding contracts. Samuel Pepys’s diary was written in the 17th century and through detailed accounts gives insight into his inherent professionalism and his negative opinions around bribery but also his acceptance of “gifts” and awarding of contracts to “friends”.

The research uses a narrative approach to study a detailed and reflective personal diary identifying the diarist’s self-exploration and attitudes around the receipt of gifts and the awarding of contracts. This microhistory is presented with a narrative account of a case study of the relationship between the diarist, Pepys and a supplier, Sir W. Warren.

The diary illustrates how Pepys crosses these boundaries and how the lack of accountability within his role enables him to do this. This detailed study enables answers to questions that with time, legislation and lack of acceptability, have become more difficult to ask and to answer, about the crossing of boundaries and ethical decisions around the acceptance of bribes and kickbacks.

A contribution of this paper is the use of a diary, at least a diary as self-reflective as Pepys’s written up as a narrative account. The use of a detailed diary in an accounting microhistory of this nature gives insight and assists in answering difficult to ask questions around personal motivations for bribery and corruption and contributes in this area. The research contributes in developing research around boundaries and the corruption equation using the insight gleaned from this narrative account.

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 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.

Gifted education suffers from the lack of a legal definition of giftedness and federal mandate for the provision of services in schools, and also from a lack of any federal funding to provide services. These lead to a situation characterized by extreme inconsistency in provision of educational services across locations, sometimes even within the same school district. We offer a historical perspective on these issues and a view of the current status of gifted education services, followed by discussion of relevant legal issues in this context.