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Purpose – The present article explores a relatively new way for consumers to dispose of items they no longer use, namely free recycling websites. Online recycling is based on an encounter with an unknown recipient to give something away ‘in person’.

Methodology – A phenomenological approach was used to understand the meaning of giving through free recycling websites. Placing the focus on the donor's perspective, we analysed Internet postings and conducted 27 in-depth interviews.

Findings – Our research shows that (1) when the object is given, the online giver is less concerned about the risk of refusal, since the recipient has deliberately made the choice to take the item; (2) when the item is received, the encounter with the recipient removes the anonymity of charities and (3) in return, the encounter with the recipient offers the giver acknowledgement for the gesture without committing them to a relationship with the recipient in the way a gift to kith or kin might do.

Research implications – While former literature has highlighted certain tensions in the gift economy, this study shows how free recycling websites can help to alleviate such tensions.

Social implications – The research highlights how this system of object disposition enhances social interactions between two strangers that share an interest in the same object.

Originality – The article shows how this new form of gift-giving relationship is both rewarding and liberating: it is rewarding thanks to the interaction with the recipient (unlike donations to charities) without necessarily creating a bond of dependence (unlike giving to someone you know).

The purpose of this theoretical chapter is to rework a promising but limited theory of the foundations of reciprocity. Reciprocity is often attributed to an “internalized norm of reciprocity” – a deeply felt moral obligation to help those who have helped us in the past. Leifer's theory of local action develops a radically different and compelling foundation for reciprocity – one in which the impetus for reciprocity is a thinly veiled battle for status. We rework the theory to offer a new one that addresses its limitations. The key idea is that the impetus for reciprocity is the desire to signal that one intends to create joint value rather than to capture it from the counterparty.

Our analytical approach rests on close examination of a puzzling and underrecognized feature of social exchange: people who initiate social exchange routinely deny giving anything of value (“it was nothing”) while the receiver inflates their indebtedness to the giver (“this is too much!”). We refer to this negotiation strategy as reverse bargaining and use it as a window into the logic of social exchange.

We develop a more general theory of how people manage the threat of opportunism in social exchange that subsumes local action theory. The key insight is that people who initiate social exchange and seek reciprocity must balance two competing objectives: to ensure that the person receiving a benefit recognizes a debt she must repay; and to mitigate the receiver's suspicion that the giver's ulterior motive is to capture value from the receiver.

Children with disabilities that exhibit maladaptive behaviors as a result of abuse and neglect require consideration of a more comprehensive, alternative method of assessment to determine the source and patterns of the behaviors. The need exists to go beyond an assessment of the current level of intellectual functioning, individual academic achievement, and functional behavior to a more ethological approach that considers the dynamics in the home and social settings that influence development. The careful analysis of the child’s social and academic records; patterns and frequency of movement for those in out-of-home placements; interviews and records of primary care givers; along with the intellectual and academic assessments enables special educators, social workers, school staff, and health care professionals to more effectively address the individual needs of the child. This paper discusses assessment methods that utilize a more comprehensive approach to determine the factors that lead to high levels of maladaptive behavior in special needs children. Additionally, alternative intervention strategies are recommended that include establishing the child’s perceived primary care giver with the most stable environment to facilitate the child’s development of more appropriate behaviors.

Research on creativity highlights feedback as an important driver of creative ideas. However, it advances a rather mechanistic understanding of communication, which obscures the specific practices in feedback interactions as well as their constitutive role in shaping creative ideas. In this paper, we advance conceptual arguments on how actors interact in communicative feedback processes on creative ideas. By drawing on the theory of communicative action by Jürgen Habermas and Hans Joas’ theory of creative action, we develop a more complex and nuanced understanding of creativity as a phenomenon that is constituted in communication. These authors’ work draws conceptual attention to the practices through which actors negotiate the novelty and usefulness of creative ideas in communicative interactions, the important role of feedback givers as creative actors, and “spaces for play” as a communicative sphere that allows creativity to emerge. We extend the literature on creativity by introducing a theory of communicative and creative action that offers to unpack communicative interactions through which creativity does or does not come into being.

The health industry is rapidly adopting digital services and face-to-face offerings are being replaced by e-services. One example is peer-to-peer survivor networks for cancer patients. This study investigates the virtual exchanges in survivor networks and whether these exchanges are valued for economic, symbolic, or expressive worth. The research seeks to address whether the alleviation of loneliness is possible.

The qualitative work in this study utilizes netnographic explorations and in-depth interviews with cancer survivors, average age 62, to investigate the social exchange continuum in peer-to-peer online patient survivor networks.

This study shows that technological innovations can aid survivorship when the exchanges are meaningful. Meaningful interactions within gift systems are valued for expressive worth and are established upon the notion of selfless gifts where the giver expects nothing in return. For networks to operate via expressiveness, informants must be open and vulnerable to others. Findings show that biographical narratives are useful tools for creating an expressive environment and givers become more giving after engaging in selfless acts. The intangibility and immaterial nature of virtual gifts creates a collective identity and fosters an aggregate extended self.

Implications emphasize the need among survivors of trauma to connect with others. Digital technologies allow connections on a global scale, so survivors can find others with similar needs. Peer-to-peer networks provide a way for survivors to meet, interact with, and extend their aggregate selves through other survivors, while experiencing a transcendent sense that they are part of something bigger than self alone.

Why open innovation? Imagine having a fortress or a bunker for innovation: what would be the impact? Imagine further that to be open is to focus on the growing tips of the roots of a tree to see what new ground they penetrate. The essential space for open innovation is that liminal space between the roots and the new ground to be penetrated. This space might be seen as the ‘Twilight Zone’, the zone for open flow innovation. As is the case for the developing areas within a nation, it is often what is happening at the periphery that is most dynamic. According to Tone Ringstad, a founder of Culturengine, innovation builds on values like curiosity, creativity, flexibility and diversity. The ‘open’ dimension requires values such as openness, trust, responsibility, authenticity and sustainability. A key prerequisite is an altruistic culture with ‘capacity givers’, who form a bridge between brains – for smart alliance building or brain circulation. To support these cultural innovation drivers, there is a need for a space. In response to this need, the first Future Center was established in Sweden in 1996, known as the Skandia Future Center. The Center later mutated into Mind Lab, Media Evolution Hub, Living Labs, LEF, etc., marking the evolution of these capacity-giver spaces. The most recent mutation is Wise Place, a creation of the Future Center Alliance Japan and now in its third iteration. It is a place, or cultural space, for mind evolution and is based on, among other things, Zen cultural insights.