IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v34y2020i4p533-549.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An Ageless Gift: Reciprocity and Value Creation By and For Older Workers

Author

Listed:
  • Barbara Foweraker

    (Independent Researcher)

  • Leanne Cutcher

    (University of Sydney Business School, Australia)

Abstract

Much of the extant literature views older workers through the lenses of human capital theory or ageism and age discrimination, both of which emphasise older workers’ value deficit. Using the case of a company that employs older workers, this article explores how ongoing exchanges between the organisation, its employees and its customers create three inter-related types of value: surplus value, staging value and accrual value. The organisation extracts surplus value by employing an older workforce who, grateful for employment during older age, reciprocate by drawing on embodied social capital to gift staging value, which sees customers reciprocate by endorsing the organisation’s products. Employment in this case is viewed as extending beyond pure commodity exchange to incorporate elements of gift exchange. The ongoing interaction and exchange with others through their work is the means by which the employees attach accrual value to themselves, thereby reproducing the good and proper ageing subject.

Suggested Citation

  • Barbara Foweraker & Leanne Cutcher, 2020. "An Ageless Gift: Reciprocity and Value Creation By and For Older Workers," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 34(4), pages 533-549, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:34:y:2020:i:4:p:533-549
    DOI: 10.1177/0950017019841521
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0950017019841521
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0950017019841521?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Avner Offer, 1997. "Between the gift and the market: the economy of regard," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 50(3), pages 450-476, August.
    2. Ian Roberts, 2006. "Taking age out of the workplace: putting older workers back in?," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 20(1), pages 67-86, March.
    3. George A. Akerlof, 1982. "Labor Contracts as Partial Gift Exchange," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 97(4), pages 543-569.
    4. Tim Strangleman, 2004. "Work Identity at the End of the Line?," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-230-51385-3, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Todd Kendall, 2009. "An empirical analysis of political activity in Hollywood," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 33(1), pages 19-47, February.
    2. Björklund Larsen, Lotta, 2015. "Common sense at the Swedish Tax Agency: Transactional boundaries that separate taxable and tax-free income," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 75-89.
    3. Gwendoline Promsopha, 2016. "Are free loans of land really free? An exploratory analysis of risk-coping motives in land arrangements in the Northeast of Thailand," Post-Print hal-01401878, HAL.
    4. Lin, Chung-Cheng & Yang, C.C., 2010. "Reciprocity and downward wage rigidity," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 1155-1168, December.
    5. Lazarev, Valery & Gregory, Paul, 2003. "Commissars and cars: A case study in the political economy of dictatorship," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 1-19, March.
    6. Gwendoline Promsopha, 2016. "Temporary transfers of land and risk-coping mechanisms in Thailand," Working Papers hal-01409110, HAL.
    7. Abigail Barr & Pieter Serneels, 2004. "Wages and Reciprocity in the Workplace," Development and Comp Systems 0409064, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Falk, Armin & Gachter, Simon & Kovacs, Judit, 1999. "Intrinsic motivation and extrinsic incentives in a repeated game with incomplete contracts," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 251-284, June.
    9. Tony Castleman, 2011. "Human Recognition and its Role in Economic Development: A Descriptive Review," Working Papers 2011-08, The George Washington University, Institute for International Economic Policy.
    10. Slim, Sadri, 2009. "Du refus de vente au don: une explication de la formation du prix par l´affect [From rejection of exchange to gift: regard as an explanation of prices]," MPRA Paper 15317, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 24 Apr 2009.
    11. Platteau, Jean-Philippe & Sekeris, Petros G., 2010. "On the feasibility of power and status ranking in traditional setups," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 267-282, September.
    12. Huysentruyt, Marieke & Barrett, Christopher B. & McPeak, John G., 2002. "Social Identity And Manipulative Interhousehold Transfers Among East African Pastoralists," Working Papers 14746, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    13. Chung-cheng Lin & C.C. Yang, 2006. "Receiprocity and Downward Wage Rigidity," IEAS Working Paper : academic research 06-A015, Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.
    14. Gwendoline Promsopha, 2017. "Are free land arrangement really free? An exploration into land arrangements made by rural-urban migrants in the Northeast of Thailand," Working Papers hal-01565843, HAL.
    15. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2009. "Homo Reciprocans: Survey Evidence on Behavioural Outcomes," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(536), pages 592-612, March.
    16. David Fairris & Gurleen Popli & Eduardo Zepeda, 2008. "Minimum Wages and the Wage Structure in Mexico," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 66(2), pages 181-208.
    17. Monika Janičíková, 2014. "Asymmetric information within Initial Public Offerings [Asymetrická informace při primárních emisích akcií]," Český finanční a účetní časopis, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2014(2), pages 81-91.
    18. Daniel Agness & Travis Baseler & Sylvain Chassang & Pascaline Dupas & Erik Snowberg, 2022. "Valuing the Time of the Self-Employed," CESifo Working Paper Series 9567, CESifo.
    19. Vera Popva, 2010. "What renders financial advisors less treacherous? - On commissions and reciprocity -," Jena Economics Research Papers 2010-036, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:34:y:2020:i:4:p:533-549. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.