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This paper investigates the motives behind corporate giving and determines whether perceived risk plays a major role in corporate surplus food donation intention. A conceptual model is developed from the perspectives of perceived risk, economic concern, past behavior, and moral motives. A questionnaire survey is conducted among food manufacturers and retailers in the Sichuan Province in China. A total of 143 valid observations are used to conduct structural equation modeling analysis. The results show that corporate reputation, legislation, and business risks are the main sub dimensions of risks that corporations perceive. Perceived risk, past behavior, environmental concern, and altruism affect corporate donation intention significantly. Implications of the findings for promoting surplus food donation are also discussed.

This paper examines the signifying mechanism of gift-giving in ancient China from the perspective of semiotic rhetoric, aiming to answer the question of what can be regarded as li (roughly meaning ceremony, rite, courtesy, or gift) or, in other words, how the social meaning of gifts is constructed in giving semiosis. It describes four dominant rhetorical devices that existed in ritual and non-ritual gift exchanges in ancient China. The ritual gift tended to adopt simile and conceit as its meaning-construction device, becoming a symbolic good beyond 'thingness' and thus fulfilling the sociocultural function of ritual. Non-ritual giving activity made use of semiotic metonymy and synecdoche as a strategy of 'indirectness' to maintain the relationship between the giver and receiver in daily communications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gifts are important instruments for forming bonds in interpersonal relationships. Our study analyzes the phenomenon of gift contagion in online groups. Gift contagion encourages social bonds by prompting further gifts; it may also promote group interaction and solidarity. Using data on 36 million online red packet gifts on a large social site in East Asia, we leverage a natural experimental design to identify the social contagion of gift giving in online groups. Our natural experiment is enabled by the randomization of the gift amount allocation algorithm on the platform, which addresses the common challenge of causal identification in observational data. Our study provides evidence of gift contagion: On average, receiving one additional dollar causes a recipient to send 18 cents back to the group within the subsequent 24 hours. Decomposing this effect, we find that it is mainly driven by the extensive margin: more recipients are triggered to send red packets. Moreover, we find that this effect is stronger for "luckiest draw" recipients, suggesting the presence of a group norm regarding the next red packet sender. Finally, we investigate the moderating effects of group- and individual-level social network characteristics on gift contagion as well as the causal impact of receiving gifts on group network structure. Our study has implications for promoting group dynamics and designing marketing strategies for product adoption. This paper was accepted by Axel Ockenfels, behavioral economics and decision analysis. Funding: T. Liu was supported by Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant 72222005] and Tsinghua University [Grant 2022Z04W01032]. J. Tang was supported by Natural Science Foundation of China for Distinguished Young Scholar [Grant 61825602]. Supplemental Material: The data files and online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4906. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that using a legal approach to fight against corruption having a cultural root is unlikely to be effective. By analyzing the Eight-point Regulation, one of Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption measures, the present study shows that the efficacy of the Regulation is limited, notably when it comes to non-economic types of corruption. In fact, the Regulation does not halt the culture of gift giving, which is a common practice for the Chinese to establish guanxi (social connection) for potential or actual corruption. Based on the findings, this paper proposes complementary measures to curb corruption in addition to legal approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

INTRODUCTION The tobacco gift-giving culture in China poses a significant challenge to public health; however, there is limited research on effectively curbing the tobacco gift-giving culture and its associated tobacco gift consumption. This study examines the potential impact of two tobacco control measures that the Chinese government may consider adopting on cigarette gifting behavior in the future in Chinese society. METHODS This study employed a randomized survey experiment to examine the effects of cigarette price treatment and pictorial health warning labels (HWLs) on cigarette gifting. The total sample size of this study is 1035. Four groups of participants were presented with representative cigarettes categorized into high-, medium-, and low-priced products, along with different prices (normal and double) or external packaging imagery (normal and pictorial HWL versions). RESULTS The price of cigarettes for personal consumption forms an L-shaped distribution, and the price of cigarette gifts forms a W-shaped distribution. Increasing cigarette prices reduces smokers' willingness to gift high-priced cigarettes but stimulates the consumption of low-price cigarettes as gifts. Pictorial HWLs do not directly influence smokers' intentions to gift cigarettes, but they enhance the effectiveness of price regulation concerning medium-priced cigarette products. CONCLUSIONS If the price variance of cigarettes is not reduced, the effect of price regulation will be very limited. Implementing combined interventions of pictorial HWLs and price regulation or modifying the pricing structure of tobacco products may yield stronger control outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the nature of the boundaries between the extended self and possessions (including potentially extended possessions) in the context of gift giving for Hong Kong Chinese consumers. Our findings showed that informants narrated stories not only about the gifts that they themselves had received as being their important possessions and thus constituting part of their extended self, but they also described objects that they had given as gifts to close others as part of their own possessions. These extended possessions potentially constituted part of their own extended selves. In addition, by the virtue of their material presence, these extended possessions acted as continuous reminders of these extended selves. The extended possessions hence provided the informants with an anchoring point to increase the relatively stability of their relationships with others, thereby countering the labile nature of ever-changing identity narratives. This paper contributes to current debates concerning the relationships between the self, possessions, and gift giving providing a richer explanation and extending previous work on possessions and the extended self. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although scholars have long been interested in distinguishing gift giving from bribery, the impact of the degree of guanxi between a giver and a recipient on this distinction remains unclear. Drawing on a bystander perspective, this paper investigates how people distinguish between two types of giving behavior: gift giving and bribing. In three studies, we examined how guanxi (Study 1, n = 143 Chinese students), the price of a present (Study 2, including 106 students and 55 employees), and the motivation for giving a present (Study 3, n = 33 Chinese students) influence people's perception of a present (i.e., as a gift or a bribe). The results largely supported our expectation that presents were more likely to be considered a bribe when guanxi utility was high, if the present held high economic value, and if the giving motivation was instrumental-oriented. Implications of our findings for future research and business practitioners in Chinese culture are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the medical practice in China, giving and taking "red envelopes" (monetary gifts) is a common phenomenon although few openly admit it. This paper, based on our empirical study including data collected from interviews and questionnaires with medical professionals and patients, attempts to explore why "red envelopes" have become a serious problem in the physician-patient relationship and how the situation can be improved. Previous studies show that scholars tend to correlate the spread of "red envelopes" in health care sector to the commercialization trend, the general erosion of traditional values, and the lowering of the moral level in the medical field. However, in this paper, the authors argue that medical professionals' choice of taking "red envelopes" is actually more a way to compensate for their problematic self-image and marred dignity in real practice. Medical professionals in China as a whole are in an embarrassing situation where the work pressure and income, and the sense of pride that used to be part of their profession are not comparable to each other. Under this circumstance, we believe that the effective way to deal with the "red envelopes" issue does not lie solely in introducing more stringent regulations or granting medical professionals higher payments, but rather in protecting and enhancing the professional dignity of all those working in healthcare. And on top of that, there must also be effort to cultivate a more favorable moral environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between gift giving, guanxi and corruption through a study of the relationships between UK manufacturing companies in China and their local component suppliers. The analysis is based on interviews in the China-based operations of 49 UK companies. Interviews were carried out both with senior (often expatriate) staff and with local line managers who were responsible for everyday purchasing decisions and for managing relationships with suppliers. The results suggest that gift giving is perceived to be a significant problem in UK-owned companies in China. However the relationship between these payments and established understanding of gift giving within guanxi- networks appears to be weak. Gift giving appears to be associated with illicit payments, corruption and the pursuit of self-interest. Firms seek to reduce the incidence of illicit transactions by changing staff roles, instituting joint responsibilities, which include the separation of different aspects of sourcing/purchasing, increasing the involvement of senior staff in the process and through the education of employee and suppliers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While research on self-gift consumer behaviour (SGCB) has shown evidence of the importance of this behaviour in Western cultures, particularly that of the United States, there is no understanding of self-gift giving in collectivist cultures. Given the self-oriented nature of this behaviour, research is required to address its possible differences in a collectivist society. In this paper, we use personal interviews with consumers to establish the existence of SGCB in China, and further to compare motivations for and the emotions associated with SGCB in positive-related contexts in the UK and mainland China, with a particular focus on the Chinese side. We also address the nature of this behaviour for Chinese participants. Findings indicate that SGCB is less self-oriented for the Chinese than for the British, and suggest that academics should reflect on the meaning of this behaviour in non-Western countries. Implications from these findings for practitioners are also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Qing emperors, who ruled over China from 1644 to 1911, managed to bring large parts of Inner Asia under their control and extended the territory of China to an unprecedented degree. This paper maintains that the political technique of patronage with its formalized language, its emphasis on gift exchange and expressions of courtesy is a useful concept for explaining the integration of Inner Asian confederations into the empire. By re-interpreting the obligations of gift exchange, the Qing transformed the network of personal relationships, which had to be reinforced and consolidated permanently, into a system with clearly defined rules. In this process of formalization, the Lifanyuan, the Court for the Administration of the Outer Regions, played a key role. While in the early years of the dynasty, it was responsible for collecting and disseminating information concerning the various patronage relationships with Inner Asian leaders, over the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries its efforts were directed at standardizing and streamlining the contacts between ethnic minorities and the state. Through the Lifanyuan, the rules and principles of patronage were maintained in a modified form even in the later part of the dynasty, when the Qing exercised control in the outer regions more directly. The paper provides an explanation for the longevity and cohesiveness of the multi-ethnic Qing Empire. Based on recently published Manchu and Mongol language archival material and the Maussian concept of gift exchange, the study sheds new light on the changing self-conception of the Qing emperors. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The late 19th century marked a significant period in Korea's history, when it established formal diplomatic relations with the outside world. Goryeo celadon began appearing in the context of diplomatic and other exchanges in the 19th century. These celadon pieces were exquisite and often of the highest quality. There are also cases of foreign diplomats collecting Goryeo celadon. British consul William Carles, French consul Victor Collin de Plancy, and American consul Horace Allen played prominent roles in collecting, selling, and donating Goryeo celadon. In the complex landscape of East Asian diplomacy, ceramics occasionally played a role in exchanges between China, Japan, and Southeast Asian regions. Overall, this phenomenon can be attributed to the changing economic and cultural value of Goryeo celadon, particularly during the late 19th century. However, the inclusion of Goryeo celadon in diplomatic contexts or as prominent diplomatic gifts was also closely related to the changing perception of Goryeo celadon within Korea, as it began to be viewed from a more externalized perspective. Moreover, as foreign interest in Korean (Joseon) culture expanded into a range of ethnographic studies, Goryeo celadon came to be recognized as an artistic product that demonstrated the cultural competence of the nation. Simultaneously, Goryeo celadon took on the role of a diplomatic medium, symbolically representing Korea's heritage on a national level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay argues that the long-standing assumption that Chan Buddhism began as a meditation movement is outdated and needs to be replaced by a paradigm that sees the origins of Chan in a set of literary inventions that took form in the mid-Tang era and were designed to prove that the totality of tradition was owned by certain masters of the day. These bold claims to own perfect tradition were bolstered by newly invented genealogies that worked to show that this or that master was, in effect, a descendant of the Indian Buddha, and, thus, a quasi-Buddha himself. Further finessing these efforts to take over final authority in the world of Tang Buddhism was the studied use of Daoist tropes to naturalize and soften these aggressive claims, all in order to make them more appealing to elite readers who could now be impressed by decidedly Chinese-looking portrayals of perfect Buddhism, set on the timeless ground of the Great Dao, where there could be no competition, envy, literary pretensions, or even Buddhist practices—just pure and total truth in the body of a Chinese man. In trying to make sense of this cycle of carefully rewriting the past in order to control the present (and future), it should be clear that we need to switch to a paradigm that accepts that the seductive reinvention of tradition was done consciously and with no small amount of craft and cunning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper expands the definition of gray-marketing to include some ethically problematic marketing activities and techniques used in personal selling in China. Based on this, a conceptual model of gray-marketing for a particular type of selling in which both the sellers and the buyers exhibit problematic ethics in an exchange and the associated hypotheses are developed and tested. The findings show that, first, the respondents have different ethical evaluations of different marketing practices used in personal selling such as giving and accepting gifts, buying and accepting meals, and offering and accepting kickbacks. Some of these practices may not be considered unethical. Second, in terms of ethical assessment, gray-marketing practiced by buying agents is more unacceptable than when practiced by sales agents. Third, a person’s ethical evaluation of gray-marketing behavior, empathy for gray-marketing, and belief that gray-marketing has serious consequences, significantly affects his inclination to use gray-marketing. This paper concludes with a discussion of some possible applications of our research findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As interest in competitive sports continues to grow, the demand for sports talent also increases. Talent development is not only a social and cultural process, but also one of mutual adaptation between talent and environment. The key elements of the macro environment of talent development are the social environment and the values and customs of the athletes' own culture, while the key elements of the micro environment of talent development are the athletes' interpersonal relationships and support elements provided through parents, coaches, and peers. To cultivate elite athletes, the influencing factors of the sports talent development environment must be analyzed. Thus, using relevant theories from the existing literature, the current study proposes a hypothesis of the influencing factors and structural equation model of sports talent development environment. A total sample of 352 athletes (M = 13.96 years, 63.35% male) was gathered from the national sports reserve talent base, college sports teams, and professional sportsmen. Data was collected using the Likert six-level scale of the sports talent development environment, which was then analyzed using SPSS and AMOS software. The results show that the athlete's training environment, support network, family characteristics, communication, and team conditions were all factors which had a positive and significant impact on the construction of sports talents' development environment. The findings of this study contribute to the theoretical foundation for the enhancement of the sports talent development environment in China, the cultivation of high-quality sports talent, and the promotion of healthy and stable sports development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pan-entertainment live streaming combines video with two-way communication and real-time viewer participation, allowing viewers to send virtual gifts to their favorite streamers. Drawing on social exchange theory, this study investigates the factors that influence viewers' gift-giving intentions in live streaming from the perspectives of both viewers and streamers. It also explores the moderating role of streamers' deceptive self-presentation. The theoretical framework is tested using AMOS and PROCESS Macro based on survey responses collected from 331 TikTok users in China. The results suggest that streamers' attractiveness, expertise, parasocial interaction, and the viewers' deceptive self-presentation significantly affect viewers' gift-giving intention, and that streamers' deceptive self-representation moderates the relationship between attractiveness, expertise, parasocial inter-action and the viewer's consumer intention. These findings contribute to social exchange theory by highlighting the importance of streamers' deceptive self-presentation in moderating the effects of attractiveness, expertise, parasocial interaction, and the viewer's deceptive self-presentation on the viewer's gift-giving intention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tradition of keeping written records of gift received during household ceremonies in many countries offers researchers an underutilized means of data collection for social network analysis. This paper first summarizes unique features of the gift record data that circumvent five prevailing sampling and measurement issues in the literature, and we discuss their advantages over existing studies at both the individual level and the dyadic link level using previous data sources. We then document our research project in rural China that implements a multiple wave census-type household survey and a long-term gift record collection. The pattern of gift-giving in major household social events and its recent escalation is analyzed. There are significantly positive correlations between gift network centrality and various forms of informal insurance. Finally, economic inequality and competitive marriage market are among the main demographic and socioeconomic determinants of the observed gift network structure.

The solicitation of charitable donations costs billions of dollars annually. Here, we introduce a virtually costless method for boosting charitable donations to a group of needy persons: merely asking donors to indicate a hypothetical amount for helping one of the needy persons before asking donors to decide how much to donate for all of the needy persons. We demonstrated, in both real fund-raisers and scenario-based research, that this simple unit-asking method greatly increases donations for the group of needy persons. Different from phenomena such as the foot-in-the-door and identifiable-victim effects, the unit-asking effect arises because donors are initially scope insensitive and subsequently scope consistent. The method applies to both traditional paper-based fund-raisers and increasingly popular Web-based fund-raisers and has implications for domains other than fund-raisers, such as auctions and budget proposals. Our research suggests that a subtle manipulation based on psychological science can generate a substantial effect in real life.

Purpose: This study investigates how social interaction-oriented content in broadcasters' live speech affects broadcast viewers' purchasing and gift-giving behaviors and how broadcaster popularity moderates social interaction-oriented content's effect on the two different behaviors in live-streaming commerce. Design/methodology/approach: A research model was proposed and empirically tested using a panel data set collected from 537 live streams via Douyin (the Chinese version of TikTok), one of the most popular live broadcast platforms in China. A fixed-effects negative binomial regression model was used to examine the proposed research model. Findings: This study's results show that social interaction-oriented content in broadcasters' live speech has an inverted U-shaped relationship with broadcast viewers' purchasing behavior and shares a positive linear relationship with viewers' gift-giving behavior. Furthermore, broadcaster popularity significantly moderates the effect of social interaction-oriented content on viewers' purchasing and gift-giving behaviors. Originality/value: This research enriches the literature on live-streaming commerce by investigating how social interaction-oriented content in broadcasters' live speech affects broadcast viewers' product-purchasing and gift-giving behaviors from the perspective of broadcast viewers' attention. Moreover, this study provides some practical guidelines for developing live speech content in the live-streaming commerce context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

INTRODUCTION Little is known about the perception and use of e-cigarettes by the Chinese, particularly the young people. This study reveals the awareness, attitudes, and use of e-cigarettes among young adults in China, examines the relationship between smoking behavior and e-cigarette perception and use, and demonstrates the phenomenon of e-cigarette gifting. METHODS We used results from a mobile app-based survey conducted in November 2015 that included 10477 young Chinese adults aged between 19 and 29 years. Bivariate tests were conducted to analyze perception and use of e-cigarettes by respondents of different smoking status. Multivariate logistic regressions were applied to examine the correlates of e-cigarette use and perception and e-cigarette gifting behavior, particularly the factors of tobacco smoking status and quitting behavior. RESULTS Among the surveyed young adults, 88.40% were aware of e-cigarettes, and nearly a quarter of all respondents had used e-cigarettes by the time of our survey. Multivariate regression results demonstrated that current smokers with quitting experience were more likely to be aware of and to use e-cigarettes than current smokers with no quitting experience. Smokers with quitting experience also were more inclined to promote e-cigarettes to others by either recommending them or giving them as gifts. CONCLUSIONS E-cigarettes have gained popularity among young adults in China and smokers, especially those who had tried quitting, were more likely to have known and used e-cigarettes. More empirical research on the relationship between e-cigarette use and smoking cessation is warranted to better inform a potential regulatory framework in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of Chinese business managers’ moral philosophies on the perception of corrupt payments such as bribery, kickbacks and gift giving. Business managers from Mainland China were selected as target respondents. As hypothesized the survey results generally indicate that moral relativism is a significant predictor of Chinese business managers’ favorable perception of bribery and kickbacks. In examining the attitude toward gift giving, the survey showed that an individual’s attitude toward gift giving was neither affected by their moral relativism nor by their moral idealism, which implies that gift giving is widely accepted as legal practice in business in Chinese cultural society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to determine a model of how a foreign businessman obtains and maintains cronyism from his Chinese counterpart that emphasizes on an insider perspective to convert him from a new friend to an old friend of his Chinese counterpart through a guanxi adaptation mechanism. Design/methodology/approach - A vigorous analysis of extant literature and an investigation of insider dynamics within a new friend/old friend perspective. Findings - Gift-giving is strategic and a foreign businessman must manage its monetary value very cautiously in order to alleviate the `face" and provide renqing so as to generate ganging and to obtain cronyism from his Chinese counterpart. In saying that, relativism prevails. A foreign company must establish a zone of ethical tolerance so that its executive knows the limits when practicing gift-giving. In China, an old friend is a supporter and therefore a foreign business should not openly criticize his Chinese counterpart. Frequent visits to China must be maintained. Practical implications - A foreign businessman needs to understand the guanxi dynamics of renqing and ganging and their sequential arrangement in the adaptation mechanism. He should use gift-giving to offer renqing so as to establish ganging with his Chinese counterparts. Originality/value - Provides a depth analysis of two emotional aspects in the guanxi adaptation mechanism, i.e. renqing and ganging which is a definitive device to convert a foreign businessman from a new friend to an old friend of his counterpart in the Chinese market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to report the results of a study undertaken to investigate the gift-giving behavior of consumers in the People's Republic of China (PRC) during the Chinese New Year and the influence exerted by Chinese cultural values on such behavior. Design/methodology/approach - Using a survey among a large sample of people in the city of Tianjin, gift-giving behavior was measured by the importance accorded to gift-giving, the amount given, the effort spent on gift selection and brand orientation when selecting gifts. The cultural values examined were renqing (human obligations), guanxi (relationship), yuan (destiny or fate), reciprocity, family orientation and Mianzi (face). Factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to analyze the data. Findings - Results indicated that Chinese cultural values as a whole as well as most of its components investigated in this research had positive effects on the various gift-giving behaviors. The "face" component was, however, found to affect only the importance attached to gift-giving, the amount given and the choice of brand. Research limitations/implications - Research results should be interpreted with caution as the study was limited to Tianjin - one of the several major cities in the PRC. Also the Chinese New Year may not be representative of other occasions when gifts are exchanged. Practical implications - The results of this investigation would benefit practitioners involved in the marketing of "gift items" in the PRC by providing them with a clear understanding of the general consumption patterns of the PRC urban consumers, insights into the various antecedents of gift-giving and linking them with various aspects of Chinese cultural values. The research findings would also benefit researchers, academics and others interested in the PRC market by making them familiar with some of the salient aspects that characterize Chinese consumers. Originality/value - This study develops a new model describing the relationships among values (Chinese cultural value and personal value), motivation for gift-giving and gift-giving behavior. It also develops new scales for measuring the constructs such as Chinese cultural values, motivation for gift-giving and gift-giving behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ivory bans are among the critical policy instruments used to strengthen regulation, reduce ivory trade, and ultimately aim to benefit elephant conservation. China imposed a comprehensive ban in 2018 to prohibit ivory importation for commercial purposes and domestic ivory sales with narrow exemptions. The ban has significantly changed China's ivory policy direction and substantially restricted the international and domestic trade of ivory in China. In this paper, we identify the development and limitations and potential for improvement. The ivory ban closed domestic sales and banned trophy ivory and pre-convention ivory imports. However, the sentencing exemptions, the exemptions for returning and auctioning ivory cultural relics, gifting ivory gifts and the unrestricted mammoth ivory trade, weaken the ivory policy and its conservation potential. Based on our analysis, we suggest that prosecution or penalties exemptions in ivory crimes may require further review to ensure regulatory deterrence effectiveness; ambiguous regulations for exempted ivory cultural relics need clear criteria for policy implementation; ivory gifting as allowed in the law requires explicit measures to prevent illegal exchange; the rising mammoth ivory markets may need regulatory management prevent 'laundering' elephant ivory. In conclusion, China's ivory control is promoted by the trade ban, yet the effectiveness of ivory policy still faces challenges in prosecution and penalty exemptions, import and auction trade exemptions, monitoring of gift giving and open mammoth ivory trade. • Sentencing, ban exemptions and mammoth ivory trade limit China's ivory policy • The exempted ivory amounts in sentencing rules for ivory crimes has increased. • Allowing ivory cultural relics to be imported and auctioned challenges regulations. • Ivory gift exchange as allowed in the current law lacks monitoring measures. • The unrestricted mammoth ivory trade may need regulation for ivory trade control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to explore the nature of virtual tipping in live game streaming from the perspective of tippers. Design/methodology/approach: This qualitative research involved six naturalistic group interviews with 27 young adult game streaming tippers in China. Findings: The research revealed a typology of four virtual tipping exchanges – perfunctory exchange, transactional (commodity) exchange, relational (gift) exchange and hybrid exchange. The most notable finding is hybrid exchange, a synergistic hybrid of transaction and gift-giving. Practical implications: The authors recommend that both streamers and streaming platforms acknowledge and accommodate both transactional and relational tipping motivations. The authors also recommend platforms to recruit skillful streamers with high emotional intelligence to better convert perfunctory tippers into tippers who tip more generously. Originality/value: The result of hybrid exchange suggests going beyond the traditional commodity vs gift dichotomy to examine the potential market-gift complementary in a single exchange in the sharing economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, live streaming has grown rapidly in recent years, with gift-giving, a unique business model in live streaming, driving the development of many industries. This article explores the association between gift-giving behavior in game live streaming and viewers' live streaming experience. Specifically, this study aims to explore the correlation between Para-social Relationships, Social Presence, and gift-giving in the context of China. Based on the survey and interview of the viewer on Douyu, a Chinese live streaming platform, this study found that there is only a weak to a medium correlation between para-social relationships and viewers' gift-giving behavior. The correlation between social presence and gift-giving was even weaker. Although the conclusion of this study may be affected by the sample size limitation, it can still provide a reference for the current research on gift-giving on Chinese live streaming platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives Quantitative measurement of the prevalence of cigarette sharing and gifting in a town in rural China and evaluation of the impact of these practices on individual smoking habits and family expenditures. Methods An interview-based cross-sectional study of 105 households in rural Hunan, China tabulated household cigarette gifting and expenditures. Individual smoking and cigarette sharing activities were also recorded among 198 household members aged >15 years who were resident for at least 6 months. Results With regard to sharing cigarettes, 92% of men and 19% of women reported being offered a cigarette within the past week. Among previous and current smokers who had attempted to quit smoking, 90% reported that their friends had tried to dissuade them from quitting by tempting them with cigarettes. Concerning gifting cigarettes, 74% of households reported sending packaged cigarettes as gifts during the Chinese New Year Festival at an average expense of 2.8% of household annual income. Although households received an average of 12.4% of their annual cigarette consumption in the form of gifts during the Chinese New Year Festival, no association was found between the amount of cigarettes received by a household and the annual cigarette consumption for that household. Conclusions Both gifting and sharing cigarettes are common in rural China. Gifting of cigarettes during the New Year Festival is a significant expenditure affecting both smoking and non-smoking households and may be an opportunity for additional mass media marketing. Among current and former smokers, sharing cigarettes in China is a major impediment to smoking cessation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gift giving is a prevalent social custom, particularly in Chinese society. Since people do not act independently of social norms, they are also motivated by the views of others when giving gifts. However, there is no existing literature on this important topic for China. To fill this gap, based on the law of diminishing marginal utility, this study investigates the effects of social conformity on gift giving in China. A relative index is constructed to capture the following behaviours in gift giving. The likelihood of following behaviours is measured by a statistical model derived from utility functions. Panel and dynamic ordinal discrete regressions are employed for empirical analysis. A case study in China employing a nationally representative longitudinal dataset with 37,147 individuals over three periods is applied. The results show that overall, more than half of the population in China tends to follow others in regard to gift expenses. However, from 2014 to 2018, this tendency declined sharply. Men are more likely to follow their peers in gift expenditure than are women. Older people have a lower preference to follow others than young people. More specifically, the assumption of diminishing marginal utility in gift giving is fully supported by the empirical findings in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

INTRODUCTION The purpose of this study was to investigate the patterns and factors associated with cigarette sharing and gifting, and to explore whether smoking can be predicted by these social practices. METHODS A cross-sectional survey using a multi-stage sampling design was conducted online from 30 April to 30 July 2020 in China. A sample of 982 household heads from Guangdong Province and 530 household heads from Shaanxi province were involved in the data analysis. Demographic characteristics, social participation, beliefs and behaviors related to cigarette sharing and gifting were assessed. Chisquared analysis and multiple logistic regression analysis were used to explore the key factors associated with cigarette sharing and gifting, and to identify their relationship with smoking. RESULTS The shared and gift cigarettes were both mainly offered to friends, and receiving gift cigarettes mostly occurred during the holidays. Gender and province were associated with cigarette sharing, and marital status and social participation were associated with cigarette gifting. Cigarette gifting beliefs and smoking status were prominent predictors for both sharing and gifting cigarettes. Cigarette gifting beliefs were significantly higher among smokers than non-smokers, and people with high cigarette gifting beliefs were 1.68 (adjusted odds ratio, AOR=19.17; 95% CI: 13.31-27.61) times more likely to be a smoker. Offering shared cigarettes has been found to significantly predict tobacco use (AOR=19.17; 95% CI: 13.31- 27.61), while people who received shared and gift cigarettes were 1.50 (95% CI: 1.08-2.09) and 2.58 (95% CI: 1.66-4.00) times more likely to be a current smoker than those who did not receive cigarettes, respectively. CONCLUSIONS Cigarette sharing and gifting were especially pervasive among male smokers and married people in Shaanxi Province. Offering shared cigarettes and receiving shared/gift cigarettes might facilitate cigarette use. This study provides evidence-based data to support the design and implementation of tobacco control programs for the denormalization of gifting and sharing cigarettes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the development of China's nonprofit organizations has received more and more attention, but most of them are faced with shortage of funds and thus unable to effectively take on project activities. According to the experience of some developed countries, individual giving is an important resource for the development of nonprofit organizations. However, China's individual donations have long been at a comparatively low level due to some complicated factors. Therefore, it is meaningful to conduct research on the factors which constrain individual donations to nonprofit organizations in China. Firstly, we studied related literature and research models designed by domestic and foreign scholars and proposed research hypotheses based on the " external factor -- endogenous motivation -- output of behavior" framework of individual donations to nonprofit organizations. In the framework, external factors are made up of relationship utility, organizational brand performance and organizational credibility; endogenous driving factors include social utility, emotional utility and demonstrable utility, and the final giving behaviors are composed of frequencies, amounts and willingness to donate. Based on the above analysis, this paper constructs a research model of interaction among external influencing factors, endogenous driving factors and output of individual giving in order to explain the incentives of individual donation to nonprofit organizations. Secondly, after studying related literature and consulting experts, we made the above six key variables operable and designed a structured questionnaire -- "Questionnaire Regarding Factors Influencing Individual Donations to Nonprofit Organizations." We conducted the questionnaire survey in Guangzhou, and recovered 516 valid samples with acceptable reliability and validity. Thirdly, statistical analysis of the survey data shows that the factors of individual giving are most positively associated with giving behavior. But the factor of demonstrable utility does not have significant correlations with frequencies and amounts of donations. With the results of regression analysis, we constructed some standardized equations in order to have a better understanding of the final giving behavior. Path analysis tells us that individual giving is actually influenced by both external factors and endogenous motivations. What is worth mentioning here is that external factors may not only directly affect an individual's giving behavior but also indirectly affect it by stimulating his/her endogenous motivation. Finally, based on the above findings and from the perspectives of the nonprofit organization, the government and the society, we brought forward some proposals and measures, for example, improving the transparency and standardization level of nonprofit organizations, regulating the fund-raising behavior of nonprofit organizations and the use of donations, and raising people's giving awareness and participation rate in order to promote the healthy growth of China's civil society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective To understand how British American Tobacco (BAT) and Philip Morris (PM) researched the role and popularity of cigarette gifting in forming relationships among Chinese customs and how they exploited the practice to promote their brands State Express 555 and Marlboro. Methods Searches and analysis of industry documents from the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library complemented by searches on LexisNexis Academic news, online search engines and information from the tobacco industry trade press. Results From 1980-1999, BAT and PM employed Chinese market research firms to gather consumer information about perceptions of foreign cigarettes and the companies discovered that cigarettes, especially prestigious ones, were gifted and smoked purposely for building relationships and social status in China. BAT and PM promoted their brands as gifts by enhancing cigarette cartons and promoting culturally themed packages, particularly during the gifting festivals of Chinese New Year and Mid-Autumn Festival to tie their brands in to festival values such as warmth, friendship and celebration. They used similar marketing in Chinese communities outside China. Conclusions BAT and PM tied their brands to Chinese cigarette gifting customs by appealing to social and cultural values of respect and personal honour. Decoupling cigarettes from their social significance in China and removing their appeal would probably reduce cigarette gifting and promote a decline in smoking. Tobacco control efforts in countermarketing, large graphic warnings and plain packaging to make cigarette packages less attractive as gifts could contribute to denormalising cigarette gifting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gift expenses escalated in China in the last decades with rapid economic growth and account for a substantial share of household expenditures. Rising gift expenses signal good friendships and facilitate reciprocity, which may enhance one's subjective wellbeing. However, increasing gift giving may also exacerbate the financial burden of households and thus has adverse welfare implications. This study examines how escalating gift expenses impact individuals' subjective happiness by using data from the China Family Panel Studies. Findings suggest that an increase in the ratio of gift expenses to household income can significantly decrease one's subjective happiness by crowding out other consumption items and harming psychological health. Overall, this study offers new insights into informal social networks maintained by gift giving, which may adversely affect household welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's first cohort of the sent-down youth during the Cultural Revolution has since its early years attracted considerable research interest and been analysed from a few different viewpoints. However, the gradual retreat from executing the sent-down policy, especially bingtui (return to urban centres of origin because of medical reasons) as the then widely used tactic, and its long-term impact on people's socio-political attitudes and behaviours have not been examined and evaluated adequately. This has resulted in a large discrepancy between the non-academic discourse of returning sent-down youth, including bingtui, and the academic literature on these aspects in both Chinese and English. As revealed by many non-academic publications, bingtui not only represented the emergence of a widespread popular resistance to the Maoist Cultural Revolution that involved mobilising those who were then sent to the countryside, but was also believed to be responsible for a surge in what has since become known as songli feng (a wave of gift-giving practice). Based on the information recorded in published personal memories of many sent-down youth and other published accounts, online and print, as well as the information collected from my own past observations and recent interviews, this article will go beyond both glowing and condemnatory documentations of the sent-down movement of the late 1960s and 1970s and seek to analyse how bingtui was started, how it was utilised by sent-down youth and their families and, importantly, how it had led more Chinese people to realise that certain aspects of their identity could be performed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foreign managers often perceive cultural practices, such as gift giving and guanxi, as being unethical. This can leave them at a disadvantage when negotiating in China. This study describes a concept for the benefit of MNEs so they can leverage performance through acquiring insider status. The study suggests that foreign managers should aim to build a solid reputation to facilitate reciprocal exchange when doing business in China. Such reciprocity can help to establish affective ties to cement a relationship. Establishing affection can also lead to greater interpersonal trust and, subsequently, some degree of loyalty can then emerge as a mechanism for generating ethical cronyism and performance advantages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores gift-giving practices using data collected through interviews in Hong Kong. I argue that Chinese culture promotes the familial over the private self and that the attainment of family-oriented goals represents an important measure of self-realization and self-fulfillment. Although each individual also has a private or inner self (chi), it is also subject to the collective will. This idea is in keeping with Confucian ideals that encourage the individual to focus on developing internal moral constraints and conquering selfishness in the pursuit of social propriety. Furthermore, the boundaries of the familial self are permeable and may include others, such as important romantic partners and, occasionally, close friends who become "like family." In family and like-family contexts, reciprocity is discouraged, and there is no need to build relationships through gift giving. Our research also suggests, however, that there are various gradations of intimacy in gift relationships against the backdrop of important cultural rules such as reciprocity, sentiment, and face. Using the categories provided by our participants, the gift continuum includes "close friends," "good friends," "just friends"/"hi-bye friends," and the "romantic other." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nature of Chinese consumption and hospitality has evolved rapidly since the post-1980s middle class adopted new lifestyles and consumption choices after the opening up of the economy and society. This study explores the logics underpinning conspicuous consumption of wine in China by way of an exploratory factor analysis of 253 respondents at a wine festival. The study found that conspicuous tendencies manifest themselves with wine consumption, but are affected by culture and traditional values. The study found that social and personal influences mediate how individuals perceive and experience consumption in ways that do not wholly follow western practices. This article contributes to the existing hospitality literature by conceptualizing from a consumer perspective, how a product or brand has the potential to become conspicuous within the Chinese hospitality context and explores implications for hospitality research by generating a thorough understanding of links between conspicuous consumption and hospitality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although some scholars have discussed the concept of the “interaction ritual”, the question of how interaction rituals operate within differential closeness levels ofguanxiin China has not yet been thoroughly explored. This study aims to fill this gap. It draws its data from two ethnographic studies of school place allocation in two Chinese cities during 2012 and 2013, and additional post-fieldwork in 2014. The research finds that the use of interaction rituals inla guanxicould be a profitable social investment, and that the interaction ritual chain is usually more powerful than a single instance of ritual. Instrumentalliis the shared value behind this type of ritual practice, which has the function of exaggerating the actors’ moral obligation and emotional attachment, and masking rational calculation, in order to justify the practice.Expressive ritual is less valued, and occurs less frequently, with distance. Instrumental ritual is more workable and occurs more frequently in moderateguanxi(a relationship neither close nor distant) than in close and distantguanxi, thus following a “weak-strong-weak” pattern. These findings suggest that instrumental ritual plays a more important role than expressive ritual in building strong social capital, due to “the strength of weak ties”. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A conceptually based taxonomy of 22 distinct forms of e-shopping vehicles is proposed. A modification of the UTAUT and UTAUT2 models is introduced to explain how vehicles are interrelated in regard to consumer reliance upon them for their e-purchasing. A survey of over 1,000 millennial university students, 697 Chinese and 306 US, revealed strong support in both samples for the hypothesized six dimensional pattern underlying consumer vehicular reliance. Further, differences between Chinese and US samples lay not in the nature of the dimensions, but rather in the strength of reliance upon each dimension. Thus, the study demonstrates the utility of the concept/measure of shopper vehicular reliance, VPR (Vehicle Purchasing Reliance) for both practitioners and scientists. In cross-national comparisons, observed differences between samples in strength of reliance supported four of five hypotheses predicated on previously established national distinctions a) in trust and b) in the cultural value of individualism-collectivism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does a group of Uyghur traders from a village in Atush (Xinjiang, China) end up with a stock of unsellable rubber sandals in Kadamjay (Batken, Kyrgyzstan), and why don’t they compete according to market principles? This article explores the social investments of the traders and their families, and reveals their behaviour to be rational, both economically and socially. It illuminates the business and daily life of Uyghur traders in southern Kyrgyzstan, an environment that is increasingly challenging and uncertain. The examination of exchange relations between their households explains why the traders cooperate as they do and also why they do not cooperate more. Economic rationales and social obligations prove to be mutually embedded. This insight expands and deepens a nascent analytical approach that recognizes social motivation for economic activities in Central Asia alongside undeniable economic incentives. This approach has much to gain from being more explicitly reconnected to classical anthropological theories of gift giving. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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Objective To date there is limited published evidence on the efficacy of tobacco control mass media campaigns in China. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of a mass media campaign 'Giving Cigarettes is Giving Harm' (GCGH) on Chinese smokers' knowledge of smoking-related harms and attitudes towards cigarette gifts. Methods Population-based, representative data were analysed from a longitudinal cohort of 3709 adult smokers who participated in the International Tobacco Control (ITC) China Survey conducted in six Chinese cities before and after the campaign. Logistic regression models were estimated to examine associations between campaign exposure and attitudes towards cigarette gifts measured post-campaign. Poisson regression models were estimated to assess the effects of campaign exposure on post-campaign knowledge, adjusting for pre-campaign knowledge. Findings Fourteen percent (n=335) of participants recalled the campaign within the cities where the GCGH campaign was implemented. Participants in the intervention cities who recalled the campaign were more likely to disagree that cigarettes are good gifts (71% vs 58%, p<0.01) and had greater levels of campaign-targeted knowledge than those who did not recall the campaign (mean=1.97 vs 1.62, p<0.01). Disagreeing that cigarettes are good gifts was higher in intervention cities than in control cities. Changes in campaign-targeted knowledge were similar in both cities, perhaps due to a secular trend, low campaign recall or contamination issues. Conclusions These findings suggest that the GCGH campaign increased knowledge of smoking harms, which could promote downstream cessation. This study provides evidence to support future campaign development to effectively fight the tobacco epidemic in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how power, social distance, and ranking of imposition specified in Brown and Levinson's politeness theory influence positive and negative politeness strategies used in Chinese gift-giving. We utilize a 2×2×2 repeated measure within subject design. Responses from 152 Chinese were subjected to analyses of repeated measure ANOVAs. Results revealed significant main effects and interaction effects for power, social distance, and ranking of imposition on politeness strategies in Chinese gift-giving behaviors. Theoretical and practical implications of the results and future research directions are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cultural and moral differences between gift giving, bribery and corruption are assessed and the author sets forth guidelines for the ethical management of business relationships in China. Transactions based upon reciprocity are analyzed in terms of the action itself and the moral intention of the agents. The suggested guidelines are based upon two sets of beliefs, the moral ambiguity one experiences in differentiating bribes from gratuities and commissions and the situation in China with respect to political and business corruption. Moreover, sources and channels for communicating ethical messages and learn how managers can best communicate ethical standards and values to employees are also determined.