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The gift-giving literature has documented several cases in which givers and recipients do not see eye-to-eye in gift-giving decisions. To help integrate this considerable segment of the gifting literature, this paper aims to develop a social norms-based framework for understanding and predicting giver-recipient asymmetries in gift selection.

Five experimental studies test the hypotheses. Participants in these studies evaluate gifts used in previous research, choose between gifts as either gift-givers or gift-recipients, and/or indicate their level of discomfort with choosing different kinds of gifts. The gifts vary in ways that allow the authors to test the social norms-based framework.

Gift-giving asymmetries tend to occur when one of the gifts under consideration is less descriptively, but not less injunctively, normative than the other. This theme holds for both asymmetries recorded in the gift-giving literature and novel ones. Indeed, the authors document new asymmetries in cases where the framework would expect asymmetries to occur and, providing critical support for the framework, the absence of asymmetries in cases where the framework would not expect asymmetries to emerge. Moreover, the authors explain these asymmetries, and lack thereof, using a mechanism that is novel to the literature on gift-giving mismatches: feelings of discomfort.

This research has multiple theoretical implications for the literatures studying gift-giving and social norms. A limitation of this work is that it left some (secondary) predictions of its model untested. Future research could test some of these predictions.

Billions of dollars are spent on gifts each year, making gift-giving a research topic of great practical importance. In addition, the research offers suggestions to consumers giving gifts, consumers receiving gifts, as well as marketers.

The research is original in that it creates a novel framework that predicts both the presence and absence of gift-giving asymmetries, introduces a psychological mechanism to the literature on giver-recipient gift choice asymmetries, and unifies many of the mismatches previously documented in this literature.

Previous research demonstrates a consistent association between the media and body and eating related issues in children. Recent research has highlighted a role for “fat talk” to describe discourses around body size and food. One key source of media information is Disney animation films, yet to date no research study has explored the verbal content of this genre.

The present study used a content analysis to examine fat talk in Disney animation films (1937–2021; n = 53) with a focus on the frequency of fat talk, changes over time and differences between the genders and heroic statuses of the givers and receivers of fat talk. Fat talk was defined as relating to both body size and food and could be either positive or negative.

Results revealed that there was more negative than positive fat talk per film; no significant changes over time; males were the givers of significantly more positive and negative fat talk than females and were also the receivers of more negative fat talk; good characters were the givers and receivers of more positive and negative fat talk and more self-directed negative fat talk than bad characters.

The results are discussed in terms of possible legislation and parenting interventions to minimise the harm of this genre on young children.

Disney animation films may not be as benign as often thought.

This study builds upon previous research on grace in the workplace, using scholarship from the fields of psychology, business ethics, philosophy and religion with the purpose of clarifying how people experience grace in their work, when it happens, why it happens and what are the affective outcomes.

Data were collected from employed adults in the USA. Research questions were explored using qualitative and quantitative methods.

Working from a conceptual framework linking the occasions of grace, the reasons for grace-giving and the resulting sentiments, the design and findings of a mixed methods study are presented. The results clarify how individuals from various work environments, demographic groups and spiritualties enact and react to grace-giving at work.

This paper contributes to organizational change and workplace spirituality literatures by unpacking what precipitates workplace grace episodes, what is the nature of the interpersonal exchanges and individuals’ affective responses. This approach allows us to better understand what happens in the specific moments of grace and how grace-giving might be encouraged.

The purpose of this study is to test whether equity theory (ET) – which posits that individuals compare their outcome/input ratio to the ratio of a “comparison other” and classify individuals as Benevolent, Equity Sensity, and Entitled – applies to the modern workplace of global virtual teams (GVT), where work is mostly intellectual, geographically dispersed and online, making individual effort nearly impossible to observe directly.

Using a sample of 1,343 GVTs comprised 6,347 individuals from 137 countries, this study tests three ET’s predictions in the GVT context: a negative, linear relationship between Benevolents’ perceptions of equity and job satisfaction in GVTs; an inverted U-shaped relationship between Equity Sensitives’ perceptions of equity and job satisfaction in GVTs; and a positive, linear relationship between Entitleds’ perceptions of equity and job satisfaction in GVTs.

Although the second prediction of ET is supported, the first and third have statistically significant opposite signs.

The research has important ramifications for management studies in explaining differences in organizational behavior in GVTs as opposed to traditional work settings.

The authors conclude that the main novelty with ET in GVTs is that GVTs are an environment stingy with satisfaction for “takers” (Entitleds) and generous in satisfaction for “givers” (Benevolents).

This study aims to broaden understanding of customer helping behaviour in the banking environment and provide strategic direction for much-needed further research regarding its role and management within the customer service journey.

Gift-giving literature was further explored to identify plausible characteristics of customer helping behaviour in the banking environment.

Customers’ acts of helping could be complex in nature and may involve multiple actors, including customer helpers, gatekeepers, and other members of customer helpers’ networks. Moreover, customer helpers and their helping networks may operate in both offline and online environments, in various stages of the service experiences, and ultimately in the customer journeys. Furthermore, the help customers provide to other customers could be framed by socially constructed arrangements that seem to be (1) dynamic in nature, (2) comprising of joint efforts by multiple actors, and (3) within diverse and interlinked helping environments. Accordingly, several research implications for the banking environment are identified.

Key to services in the banking environment may be the complex and synthesised helping systems among customers that evidently could affect product adoption, use, and customer loyalty of customers receiving help throughout the service experiences and customer journeys. Accordingly, guided by gift-giving literature, the current paper sets the research agenda.

Employee recognition systems are ubiquitous in organizations (WorldatWork, 2019) and have positive effects on work outcomes (e.g. Stajkovic and Luthans, 2001). However, psychologically meaningful recognition relies on the recognition giver being motivated to observe and recognize coworkers. Crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic may impact recognition giving in varying ways, yet little research considers this possibility.

This longitudinal field study examined the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on recognition and acknowledgment giving among frontline and nonfrontline healthcare workers at daily and aggregated levels. We tested the relationships between publicly available daily indicators of COVID-19 and objectively measured daily recognition and acknowledgment giving within a web-based platform.

We found that the amount of daily recognition giving was no different during the crisis compared to the year before, but fewer employees gave recognition, and significantly more recognition was given on days when COVID-19 indicators were relatively high. In contrast, the amount of acknowledgment giving was significantly lower in frontline staff and significantly higher in nonfrontline staff during the pandemic than before, but on a daily-level, acknowledgment was unrelated to COVID-19 indicators.

Our results suggest that organizational crises may at once inhibit and stimulate employee recognition and acknowledgment.

Our research is the first to empirically demonstrate that situational factors associated with a crisis can impact recognition giving behavior, and they do so in ways consistent with ostensibly contradictory theories.

This paper aims to build on Part 1 which generated a theory representing the experiences of charity peer leaders facilitating well-being interventions (Burns, 2024). This study (Part 2) examines the process of peers [1] becoming peer leaders using the generated theory.

Following the Medical Research Council Process Evaluation Framework (Moore et al, 2015), the methods for this study were as follows: discussion and informal questions with all project staff (skilled group facilitators and peer leaders) at the start of the Refugee projectx; in-depth, self-report questionnaire with the skilled group facilitators; researcher observations of the peer leaders learning to lead and leading the groups; and group interview with peer leaders.

When analysed in line with the theory, the data showed the following: being empathic and validating someone’s story helps the person feel like their journey counts and is of worth; the “dance” of rapport and relationship is a vital ingredient for a successful group; the process of sharing stories and giving hope bring rewards; hope can be gained, given and given again without diminishing hope within the giver.

The theory that emerged in this study is unique to Part 1 and therefore Part 2 is also original, to the best of the author’s knowledge. The demonstration of the use of the theory in practise could support mental health peer work in offsetting statutory health-care costs.

This paper aims to explore the role of individual inner dimensions in fostering sustainable mindsets in accounting students and graduates. Individual inner dimensions such as compassion shape our behaviour and responses to sustainability challenges. Consideration of inner dimensions, in conjunction with sustainability knowledge and skill development, is needed for reshaping the accounting profession towards achieving sustainable futures.

The authors explore the role of individual inner dimensions in accounting and how approaches to cultivating compassion in other disciplinary educational settings could be applied to cultivate and facilitate compassion within accounting education. Approaches to cultivating compassion for human and non-human species within accounting education are presented, highlighting their relevance to accounting decisions and organisational accountability.

Cultivating compassion for human and non-human species within accounting education aligns with the broader role of accounting in social and environmental issues. Embedding compassionate approaches with a problem-solving focus within accounting pedagogies and curricula design could contribute to shaping behaviour and reorienting the mindsets of future accounting professionals.

Cultivating compassion within accounting students enhances connections across species, encourages students to recognise the role of compassion in sustainable decision-making and promotes a sustainable mindset. Enhanced compassion in accounting graduates could provide the motivational force for action-oriented responses from the accounting profession to the unprecedented ecological crisis.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper presents a first step in exploring potential approaches to cultivating and facilitating compassion within accounting pedagogies and curricula design. This paper extends sustainability accounting education literature by considering individual inner dimensions in shifting mindsets of accounting students, graduates and educators towards sustainability.

The purpose of this study is to empirically examine the cause–effect relationships between workplace friendship and knowledge-sharing behavior, from a static perspective. Furthermore, it investigates the bi-directional relationship between the increase in both workplace friendship and knowledge-sharing behavior over same time periods, and also endeavors to identify whether there is a significant negative lagged effect of the increase in both workplace friendship on knowledge-sharing behavior, and vice versa, across time from a dynamic perspective.

The study conducts a three-wave questionnaire survey to test the research model. A latent change score approach was used to test the direct relationship between changes in workplace friendship and changes in knowledge-sharing behavior.

The findings reveal that knowledge-sharing behavior fosters workplace friendship and workplace friendship promotes the emergence of knowledge-sharing behavior. An increase in workplace friendship promotes an increase in knowledge-sharing behavior over same time periods. However, an increase in workplace friendship will lead to a lagged decrease of knowledge-sharing behavior across time, and vice versa.

The time interval in this study is a little short to capture the full changes in workplace friendship. Some important control factors and mediating mechanisms are not included in the research model.

This study guides managers to focus on various motivators to better strengthen workplace friendship and knowledge-sharing behavior and to consider and effectively respond to the negative side of workplace friendship and knowledge-sharing behavior across time.

This study emphasizes the predictivity of one important interaction patterns, namely, knowledge-sharing behavior on friendship at the workplace, from a static perspective. This study also shows the benefits of an increase in workplace friendship for the development of knowledge-sharing behavior in the same time period. Furthermore, the study presents a counterintuitive finding when taking the lag effect into consideration in exploring the relationship between changes both in workplace friendship and knowledge-sharing behavior, and identifies a negative side of both when viewed over longer periods.