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Introduction: The current study examines the relationship of reciprocity and the knowledge sharing behavior (KSB) with the mediating role of organizational commitment.

Aim: The purpose of this chapter is to examine linkages between reciprocity and KSB in Pakistani Pharmaceutical industry basing on social exchange theory (SET) (Blau, 1964). Employees’ affective and normative organizational commitments were proposed as mediator to explain these relationships.

Method: Data were collected using Survey Questionnaires from a sample of 287 managers and staff of sales department of different pharmaceutical firms in Rawalpindi and Islamabad, Pakistan. This is an explanatory study with a quantitative approach. KSB model was developed and tested using a two-stage analysis. Initially, path analysis using AMOS was carried out followed by mediation through process analysis.

Findings: Affective and normative commitment was found to be mediating between reciprocity and KSB using SET.

Originality of the Study: Few empirical studies have analyzed the effects of reciprocity on KSB, especially in context of pharmaceutical industry. Mediation of employee’s commitment could provide new insights to management practitioners in fostering KSB.

Implications: The finding will allow organizations in general and pharmaceutical firms in particular, to focus more on commitment toward their employee as a reciprocal benefit for improving knowledge sharing culture in their organizations.

The social relations model (SRM; Kenny, 1994) explicitly proposes that leadership simultaneously operates at three levels of analysis: group, dyad, and individual (perceiver and target). With this model, researchers can empirically determine the amount of variance at each level as well as those factors that explain variance at these different levels. This chapter shows how the SRM can be used to address many theoretically important questions in the study of leadership and can be used to advance both the theory of and research in leadership. First, based on analysis of leadership ratings from seven studies, we find that there is substantial agreement (i.e., target variance) about who in the group is the leader and little or no reciprocity in the perceptions of leadership. We then consider correlations of leadership perceptions. In one analysis, we examine the correlations between task-oriented and socioemotional leadership. In another analysis, we examine the effect of gender and gender composition on the perception of leadership. We also explore how self-ratings of leadership differ from member perceptions of leadership. Finally, we discuss how the model can be estimated using conventional software.

Given the suggested importance of collaborative capital to team and organizational performance, it is important that we develop a better understanding of potential processes by which it is developed in organizations. This chapter represents an attempt to explore one such process by examining why and how individuals contribute to the creation and maintenance of collaborative capital in the organizations for which they work. Drawing on social exchange theory and the norm of reciprocity, it is argued that individuals’ perceived social exchange relationship quality with their coworkers will predict their contributions to collaborative capital. Results of a preliminary empirical examination supporting this prediction are shared and suggestions for future research are offered.

Purpose — This chapter focuses on trust-building between American and Chinese business negotiators in the U.S.–Chinese collaborative projects through the work of ethnic Chinese employees. These ethnic Chinese employees can be effective trust-builders who can prevent dishonest behaviors in negotiations and implementations of projects in China through adequate corporate policies and training.Design/methodology/approach — The data were collected through semi-structured personal in-depth interviews through years 1994–2004 in the United States and in Hong Kong. The data were further validated by the author’s recent six years of field work in mainland China (2006–2011).Findings — The work explains how 36 Chinese expatriates in the United States and 24 Chinese executives in Hong Kong established trust between the U.S. negotiators coming from an individualistic, goal-oriented, low-context culture with a mature market economy and a well-established legal system and Chinese negotiators coming from a collectivistic, relationship-oriented, power-driven, high-context culture with an emerging market economy and an embryonic legal system. Many Chinese expatriates and executives have learned to entwine affect-based trust (feeling) and cognitive-based trust (information) with the Chinese representatives but cannot convey the affect-based trust to the relationships between American and Chinese representatives. Many Chinese expatriates and executives can use their affect-based trust to ask for reciprocity from the Chinese representatives and discern how to leverage on valid information provided by both sides. The social consequences of breaking affect-based trust relationships in the context of the Chinese culture are well above the norms to facilitate honest relationships between the U.S.–Chinese collaborative projects. The affect-based trust between ethnic Chinese employees and Chinese negotiators is transferred to defer dishonest behaviors in negotiations and projects when these ethnic Chinese employees perceive to have authority to mobilize American corporate resources in the negotiation processes.Social implications — American corporations need to enhance the effectiveness of their ethnic Chinese employees as valuable honesty builders in negotiations and implementations of projects in China, where there are weak institutional policies and structures to punish dishonest organizational practices.Originality/value — It is important for American corporations to develop a shared understanding between American representatives and their ethnic Chinese employees in the context of U.S.–Chinese cooperative project negotiations through corporate policies and training programs before a team of American representatives is formed.

An ongoing debate in social exchange theory centers on the benefits and drawbacks of reciprocal versus negotiated exchange for dyadic relationships. Lawler's affect theory of social exchange argues that the interdependent nature of negotiated exchange enhances commitment to exchange relations, whereas Molm's reciprocity theory suggests that reciprocal exchange fosters more integrative bonds than the bilateral agreements of negotiation. In this chapter, we use data from in-depth, semi-structured interviews with poor and working-class couples to explore the effects of both types of exchange on relationship satisfaction. Consistent with reciprocity theory, we find that couples who engage in reciprocal exchange are happier and more satisfied with their relationship than those who explicitly negotiate the division of labor in their households and that the expressive value of these exchanges play an important role in this outcome. However, reciprocity is not enough. As predicted by the affect theory, the couples with the best outcomes also perceive supporting a family as a highly interdependent task, regardless of their family structure. Our results point to the complementary nature of these two theories in a natural social setting.

Stakeholders often engage in actions aimed at either benefitting or punishing firms for their behaviour. Such behaviours can have very serious implications for various types of firm performance, including financial performance. Though one might expect that the investigation of possible precursors of such “stakeholder action” would be a priority of researchers in stakeholder theory, to date research within the stakeholder literature directed towards understanding stakeholder behaviour has been somewhat scarce. In this chapter, I present common themes and assumptions that prevail in the existing research on stakeholder action, identify certain important questions concerning such assumptions and suggest avenues for future research on stakeholder behaviour.

Existing models of gift applied to religious charities are either abstract or sometimes very limited in their applicability to understand the reciprocal relationships throughout the interconnected chain of giving and receiving charities. The paper contributes to this debate by asking: How gift economy explains the circulation of charities across interconnected spheres of local governance? And what are the implications of these inter-linkages for social welfare provisions where states are ineffective in the provision of these services? To answer these questions, the study presents the case of Zakat in Islam and Dasvandh in Sikhism in the northwest of Pakistan. In both the cases, charity is an important element of the social welfare provision within local governance structure. The findings suggest that conceptualizations of the religious charities as a triad including God, the rich and the poor are unsuitable gift models for grasping the role of charities in the local governance of social welfare provision.