IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jtrust/v7y2017i1p90-106.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Gift giving, reciprocity and the creation of trust

Author

Listed:
  • Martin Mathews

Abstract

This paper examines the role that gift giving plays in supplier–buyer relations, specifically, the role of gift giving and the creation of inter-organisational trust. Repeated inter-organisational exchanges in a mature industrial district are analysed using Mauss’ theoretical framework of gift giving, receiving and counter giving. Actors in embedded network relationships frequently exchange gifts and favours as part of commercial exchanges. This gift giving is a fundamental part of the exchange relationship. Gift giving is found to be instrumental in creating and maintaining relationships, defining group and individual identity and resolving conflicts, thus contributing to the creation of trust between partners. Mauss’ theory of gift giving elaborates how this practise creates the conditions for reciprocity and induces trust. The originality of our findings lies in the fact that despite the dominant ideology of the purely altruistic gift, field research demonstrates that gifts do play a role in modern economic exchanges and that this ancient deeply rooted social custom should not be simply relegated to families, close friends and Christmas, but contributes to explaining the first step of trust and trust creation in repeated exchanges.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Mathews, 2017. "Gift giving, reciprocity and the creation of trust," Journal of Trust Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(1), pages 90-106, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jtrust:v:7:y:2017:i:1:p:90-106
    DOI: 10.1080/21515581.2017.1286597
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/21515581.2017.1286597
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/21515581.2017.1286597?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin Mathews & Peter Stokes, 2013. "The creation of trust: the interplay of rationality, institutions and exchange," Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(9-10), pages 845-866, December.
    2. Falk, Armin & Fischbacher, Urs, 2006. "A theory of reciprocity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 293-315, February.
    3. Sherry, John F, Jr, 1983. "Gift Giving in Anthropological Perspective," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 10(2), pages 157-168, September.
    4. Jay B. Barney & Mark H. Hansen, 1994. "Trustworthiness as a Source of Competitive Advantage," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(S1), pages 175-190, December.
    5. Carmichael, H Lorne & MacLeod, W Bentley, 1997. "Gift Giving and the Evolution of Cooperation," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 38(3), pages 485-509, August.
    6. Mark Granovetter, 2005. "The Impact of Social Structure on Economic Outcomes," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(1), pages 33-50, Winter.
    7. Peter Ping Li, 2012. "When trust matters the most: The imperatives for contextualising trust research," Journal of Trust Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 2(2), pages 101-106, October.
    8. repec:dau:papers:123456789/630 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Jeffrey H. Dyer & Wujin Chu, 2003. "The Role of Trustworthiness in Reducing Transaction Costs and Improving Performance: Empirical Evidence from the United States, Japan, and Korea," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 14(1), pages 57-68, February.
    10. Reinhard Bachmann, 2011. "At the crossroads: Future directions in trust research," Journal of Trust Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 1(2), pages 203-213, June.
    11. Meric S. Gertler, 2003. "Tacit knowledge and the economic geography of context, or The undefinable tacitness of being (there)," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(1), pages 75-99, January.
    12. Peter Maskell & Mark Lorenzen, 2004. "The Cluster as Market Organisation," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 41(5-6), pages 991-1009, May.
    13. Michel Barabel & Isabelle Huault & Olivier Meier, 2007. "Changing Nature and Sustainability of the Industrial District Model: The Case of Technic Valley in France," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(4), pages 595-620, December.
    14. Paul S. Adler, 2001. "Market, Hierarchy, and Trust: The Knowledge Economy and the Future of Capitalism," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 12(2), pages 215-234, April.
    15. Michael Storper, 2005. "Society, Community and Economic Development," Post-Print hal-03416658, HAL.
    16. Jack, Sarah L. & Anderson, Alistair R., 2002. "The effects of embeddedness on the entrepreneurial process," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 467-487, September.
    17. Jeffrey H Dyer & Wujin Chu, 2000. "The Determinants of Trust in Supplier-Automaker Relationships in the U.S., Japan and Korea," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 31(2), pages 259-285, June.
    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. Bill McEvily & Vincenzo Perrone & Akbar Zaheer, 2003. "Trust as an Organizing Principle," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 14(1), pages 91-103, February.
    2. Jensen, Paul H. & Palangkaraya, Alfons & Webster, Elizabeth, 2015. "Trust and the market for technology," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 340-356.
    3. Martin Mathews & Peter Stokes, 2013. "The creation of trust: the interplay of rationality, institutions and exchange," Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(9-10), pages 845-866, December.
    4. Gregorio Rius-Sorolla & Sofía Estelles-Miguel & Carlos Rueda-Armengot, 2020. "Multivariable Supplier Segmentation in Sustainable Supply Chain Management," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-16, June.
    5. M. Meuleman & S. Manigart & A. Lockett & M. Wright, 2006. "Transaction costs, behavioral uncertainty and the formation of interfirm cooperations: Syndication in the UK private equity market," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 06/359, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    6. Christiane Bradler & Susanne Neckermann, 2019. "The Magic of the Personal Touch: Field Experimental Evidence on Money and Appreciation as Gifts," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 121(3), pages 1189-1221, July.
    7. Leonardo Becchetti & Emanuele Bobbio & Federico Prizia & Lorenzo Semplici, 2022. "Going Deeper into the S of ESG: A Relational Approach to the Definition of Social Responsibility," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-22, August.
    8. Wang, Chun-Ju & Wu, Lei-Yu, 2012. "Team member commitments and start-up competitiveness," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 65(5), pages 708-715.
    9. Andreas Nicklisch & Tobias Salz, 2008. "Reciprocity and status in a virtual field experiment," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2008_37, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    10. Laamanen, Tomi, 2005. "Dependency, resource depth, and supplier performance during industry downturn," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 125-140, March.
    11. Dahlgrün, Philipp W. & Bausch, Andreas, 2019. "How Opportunistic Culture Affects Financial Performance in Outsourcing Relationships: A Meta-Analysis," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 81-100.
    12. Lee, Ho & Kim, Moon Sun & Kim, Kyung Kyu, 2014. "Interorganizational information systems visibility and supply chain performance," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 285-295.
    13. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/f0uohitsgqh8dhk980eal4i12 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Ranjay Gulati & Maxim Sytch, 2008. "Does familiarity breed trust? Revisiting the antecedents of trust," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(2-3), pages 165-190.
    15. Thomas Farole & Andres Rodriguez-Pose & Michael Storper, 2007. "Social capital, rules, and institutions: A cross-country investigation," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03461998, HAL.
    16. Claudio Aqueveque & Catherine Encina, 2010. "Corporate Behavior, Social Cynicism, and Their Effect on Individuals’ Perceptions of the Company," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 91(2), pages 311-324, February.
    17. Bradler, Christiane & Neckermann, Susanne, 2016. "The magic of the personal touch: Field experimental evidence on money appreciation as gifts," ZEW Discussion Papers 16-043, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    18. Markus Grillitsch & Magnus Nilsson, 2015. "Innovation in peripheral regions: Do collaborations compensate for a lack of local knowledge spillovers?," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 54(1), pages 299-321, January.
    19. Artur A Steinerowski & Izabella Steinerowska-Streb, 2012. "Can social enterprise contribute to creating sustainable rural communities? Using the lens of structuration theory to analyse the emergence of rural social enterprise," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 27(2), pages 167-182, March.
    20. Michael Storper, 2010. "Why Does a City Grow? Specialisation, Human Capital or Institutions?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 47(10), pages 2027-2050, September.
    21. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/f0uohitsgqh8dhk980eal4i12 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Franz Tödtling & Markus Grillitsch, 2015. "Does Combinatorial Knowledge Lead to a Better Innovation Performance of Firms?," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(9), pages 1741-1758, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:taf:jtrust:v:7:y:2017:i:1:p:90-106. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RJTR20 .

    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.