Magic of the gift in the workplace: Reply to Dodlova and Yudkevich

The article is a reply to M. Dodlova and M. Yudkevich. In their recent paper they undertake an attempt to use the notion of gift in the analysis of principal–agent relationship and to generalize the idea of gift in order to obtain a theory of gift exchange in the workplace. However, the analysis suggested lacks conceptual clarity and rests upon false presuppositions regarding the nature of gift. As a result, authors draw erroneous conclusions and fall victims of the magic of the gift. This short reply points to these deficiencies and suggests some ideas for alternative approaches to the analysis of certain phenomena observed in the workplace.     

"No fear" fund raising

Successfully asking for a major gift requires practice. We only raise major gifts by asking and that requires us to get out there in front of major gift prospects. We must discipline ourselves to do just that. Being a successful major gift fund raiser requires continual practice.     

The final outcome of charitable bequest gift intentions: Findings and implications for legacy fundraising

Charitable bequest gifts are important to charities but evaluating legacy fundraising activities is problematic. These activities may not generate bequest income until many years later. Thus, many charities focus on generating reports of current plans or intentions for bequest gifts. Such approaches depend on the link between these reports and ultimate bequest transfers. However, this link is not well documented. This study presents the first multi-organisational results linking ultimate estate distributions with lifetime legacy giving plans or intentions reported to charities. Ten Australian charities provided data from those dying in 2014–2017. Among 700 decedents who had confirmed the presence of a planned bequest gift to the charity, 35% generated no estate gift. This lost gift rate varied from 17 to 60% across different organisations. The average loss rate was 24% when the charity had at least one communication with the decedent within 2 years of death, and 48% otherwise. Among 264 people reporting to the charity that they were “intending” or “considering” an estate gift but not confirming it, 89% left no gift at death. Among 507 people only requesting information about making a bequest gift, 95% left no gift at death. These results suggest the importance of moving donors to the point of planned gift confirmation and then maintaining relationships until the end of life. However, marketing remains challenging given that 58% of the 2,682 total bequest gifts received by these organisations came from decedents who were not donors during life.     

I give at the office: A review of workplace giving research,theory, and practice

Workplace giving is a widely used philanthropic tool. Although it may have great unmet potential, it is also facing a number of challenges, including competition from informal crowdfunding campaigns. In the face of such challenges, we take stock of the extant research to better understand the value and future of workplace giving, emphasizing employee actions and preferences in our review. Workplace giving studies can also augment knowledge about contextual giving or bounded settings for exploring basic philanthropic questions (e.g., donor control or gift elasticity). We use a three‐part conceptual framework to synthesize and discuss research on individual workplace giving in the context of broader giving behaviors. We address what researchers know, do not know, and need to know on the topic of workplace giving.     

First‐year donation behavior and risk of supporter lapse

• In this research, we explore supporter lapse behavior after making first‐year donations to a nonprofit organization. We argue that two observable variables — the monetary amount of first gift at sign‐up and the number of gifts given in the first year of the support relationship — can be used to approximate the level of commitment to supporting the organization and to predict likelihood of lapse in subsequent years. The reasoning is that the two variables are indications of the psychological resources as well as the financial resources expended in reaching donation decisions. The research hypotheses were tested using fundraising data extracted from the databases of two leading US‐based nonprofit organizations. Results indicate that both variables had significant effects. Interestingly, the number of gifts given in the first year of the support relationship had a much bigger effect than the dollar amount of the gift at sign‐up: In one organization, supporters who donated more than one gift in the first year were 39% less likely to lapse in subsequent years compared with their one‐gift counterparts, while a tenfold increase in the dollar amount of the first gift at sign‐up (e.g., from $10 to $100) predicted only 4% decrease in the lapse likelihood in subsequent years. Insights from this research may help to build better practices of supporter base management in “low‐touch” fundraising programs for attracting, building relationships with, and sending appeals to supporters.

Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Are single‐gift committed donors different from their multiple‐gift counterparts?

Committed donors who keep giving every year are a key asset for nonprofit organizations because they provide a steady funding source and return a higher lifetime value. We distinguish between committed donors who give only one gift per year (single‐gift (SG) donors) and those who give multiple gifts in at least some year (multiple‐gift (MG) donors). In this paper, we study whether SG donors and MG donors follow different longitudinal patterns of gift‐giving in four consecutive years. We theorize that a donor's yearly gift amount is an indication of his or her willingness to give (WTG) to the organization and may be explained in terms of his or her intrinsic willingness to give (IWTG) and extrinsic willingness to give (EWTG) for that year. We test our theory with data from a leading US nonprofit organization and find that SG donors and MG donors would follow different longitudinal patterns:

• While SG donors and MG donors would start off at a similar level of WTG in year 1 and would both increase WTG in subsequent years, MG donors would record a higher rate of increase than SG donors.
• IWTG and EWTG would have different relative importance as determinants of the observed yearly giving level: MG donors depend on both IWTG and EWTG whereas SG donors largely depend on IWTG rather than EWTG to determine how much to give in a year.

Our findings suggest that different strategies are needed to manage SG donors and MG donors to sustain and grow annual contributions. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Gossip in the workplace and the implications for HR management: a study of gossip and its relationship to employee cynicism

Gossip is a common phenomenon in the workplace, but yet relatively little is understood about its influence to employees. This study adopts social information theory and social cognitive theory to interpret the diverse literature on gossip, and to develop and test hypotheses concerning some of the antecedents of gossip, with an aim of developing knowledge of the relationship between gossip and employee behaviour in the workplace. The study analysed survey data in a two-stage process, from 362 employees across a range of industries in Taiwan. The findings revealed that job-related gossip predicted employee cynicism and mediated the relationship between psychological contract violation and cynicism, and that non-job-related gossip showed a similar but weaker effect to employee cynicism. The contribution made by this paper is of value to both the academic subject domain and managers in Human Resources. First, we have identified two constructs of gossip, job-related and non-job-related gossip not previously reported and a validated scale has been created. Second, we have confirmed that these different constructs of gossip impact differently on employee behaviour and therefore HR managers should be cautious about gossip in the workplace, as it can cause cynical behaviour amongst employees.     

The negative effects of delays in information exchange: Looking at workplace relationships from an affective events perspective

Although timely exchange of information is critical to organizations, it often fails to happen. In this paper, we present a conceptual framework for understanding how delays in information exchange negatively impact employee outcomes. Using affective events theory, delays are conceptualized as workplace events. In contrast to prior delay research, we adopt a temporal perspective for studying employees' experiences during a delay and how these experiences influence interpersonal behavior. We suggest that how employees appraise and experience delays depends, critically, upon the coworker and his or her behavior during the delay. We also identify a set of situational and dispositional factors that are important for predicting when delays in information exchange are likely to undermine coworker relationships and when they are not. Throughout the paper, we develop propositions to guide research and human resource management practice.     

赠与合同中民事法律关系理论的几点研究

赠与合同是一种特殊形态的民事法律关系,它是指赠与人将自己合法财产无偿给予受赠人,受赠人表示接受的双方一致合同。与其他有名合同作比,赠与行为的发生,往往是基于亲属关系、朋友或其他道德上的原因。因此,赠与合同在本质上与其他转移财产合同如买卖、互易合同是完全不同的。本文通过有关赠与合同主体、客体的资格界定;通过对其内容的归类,从民事法律关系角度对赠与合同进行阐述。     

Community-engaged philanthropy: The role of the fundraiser in building equitable communities

In recent years, fundraisers have become increasingly focused on major gift solicitation while donors have been making larger gifts to fewer organizations. As this trend continues, some have begun to question whether major organizations and/or wealthy individuals now have too much control over the work of nonprofits and the communities they serve. While it is true that major gifts are important and can made a noticeable, positive impact, in some cases community members might see their impact as intrusive. In situations such as this, what is the “best” course of action? How should fundraisers consider, balance, and address the perspectives and rights of their organization, donors, and community members? This paper creates a framework for fundraisers as they consider not only their responsibilities to their organization and constituents, but also their responsibilities for promoting equity within their community as a whole. This paper draws on the social-ecological model, as well as concepts from intersectionality, to explore how fundraisers can increase involvement from all community members in a nonprofit's work to create a participatory and community-engaged process, with a special focus on including those who are typically marginalized, rather than maintaining a hierarchical system of power. It also draws on the theories of rights-balanced fundraising ethics, community-centric fundraising, and other ethical frameworks of fundraising and public administration to compare what is being done by fundraisers to what should be done to encourage ethical practices in fundraising. The paper is supplemented by examples of the impact of implementing (or not implementing) community engagement in fundraising practices. This paper aims to create a community-engaged philanthropy framework for fundraisers as they consider not only their responsibilities to their organization and donors, but also their responsibilities for promoting equitable distributions of power within their community. This framework provides specific guidance for fundraisers as to how they can balance these multiple (and sometimes competing) responsibilities while also keeping ethics at the forefront of their actions. It demonstrates how, by taking a community-engaged approach to their work, fundraisers are able to bring about better long-term outcomes for their organization. Specifically, the framework considers: (1) To whom are fundraisers most responsible, and to whom should fundraisers be most responsible—their nonprofit, their donors, or those being served? (2) For what rights of community members must the fundraiser account when soliciting funds, and to what extent is the fundraiser responsible for upholding these rights? (3) In what ways can an invitation from a fundraiser to make a gift also invite some level of power or control over the organization's work? (4) To what extent do fundraisers have the responsibility to maintain an equitable power balance among their constituents, including donors and those served? (5) How can fundraisers help ensure that all community members are able to participate in the organization's work to extent that they are willing and able?     

Worker reciprocity and the returns to training: Evidence from a field experiment

Do reciprocal workers have higher returns to employer-sponsored training? Using a field experiment with random assignment to training combined with survey information on workers' reciprocal inclinations, the results show that reciprocal workers reciprocate employers' training investments by higher posttraining performance. This result, which is robust to controlling for observed personality traits and worker fixed effects, suggests that individuals reciprocate the firm's human capital investment with higher effort, in line with theoretical models on gift exchange in the workplace. This finding provides an alternative rationale to explain firm training investments even with the risk of poaching.     

企业不完全契约理论:马克思与GHM分析框架的比较

企业是一个不完全契约是现代企业理论的重要结论。马克思通过分析企业签约人的权力界定、内部分工与社会分工的异同，构建了其不完全契约分析框架。这与西方主流企业理论的GHM分析框架在权力配置来源、不完全契约的原因解释和企业理论的演进逻辑方面存在分歧。相比较，前者更为完整和系统化。     

拒绝“内卷”:团队人际关系、工作需求创新对和谐型激情的作用机制

职场内卷现象受到多方关注,如何让员工持续热爱工作成为现实的命题。本文以自我决定理论及工作特征理论为依据,考察团队人际关系、员工团队心理安全感及工作需求创新对员工和谐型激情的作用机制。研究发现:高质量领导成员交换关系和团队成员交换关系能使员工产生团队心理安全感,团队心理安全感分别在领导成员交换关系及团队成员交换关系与和谐型激情之间起中介作用,工作需求创新调节了中介效应。因此,组织若欲令员工热爱工作,团队的“安全感”和工作的“新鲜感”同样重要,应着力在团队人际关系建设和工作设计方面提升员工的积极感知体验。研究结论对组织员工管理实践具有一定指导意义。     

Employer‐supported volunteering benefits: Gift exchange among employers,employees, and volunteer organizations

Using gift exchange theory to explain the growing trend of employers offering employer‐supported volunteering (ESV) benefits, this article discusses the creation of exchange relationships between the employer and employee and between the volunteer organization and employee. Hypotheses derived from the employee's perspective are tested with a nationally representative sample of volunteers (n=3,658). Findings suggest that ESV benefits are positively related to hours volunteered by the employee. Volunteer hours predict employee perceptions of skill acquisition, and such perceptions are positively related to perceptions of job success and employer recognition. We discuss the implications of these findings for business, employees, and volunteer organizations, with an emphasis on human resource management policy and practice. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

A social exchange theory framework for understanding the job characteristics–job outcomes relationship: the mediating role of psychological contract fulfillment

This study integrated the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model and concept of psychological contract fulfillment into a social exchange theory process framework to improve our understanding how and when job characteristics interact to influence job outcomes. Using survey data (n = 334), we found evidence to support our hypothesized relationships between job characteristics (job demands and job resources) and job outcomes (job satisfaction and organizational commitment); and the mediating role of psychological contract fulfillment (transactional and relational), such that when job resources (job control and support) were high, the negative effects of high job demands on psychological contract fulfillment were attenuated. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.     

The paradox of growth and giving: Critical case sampling to illuminate the catalytic potential of an underresearched phenomenon

The paradox of growth and giving is that, for a philanthropic gift to be of maximum use, both the donor and the nonprofit client must grow. The client's growth is frequently measured through program outcomes. The donor's growth is rarely addressed, but it can be measured by the cognitive complexity with which the donor approaches the problem. This qualitative study used constructive developmental theory and critical case sampling to identify and describe the three possible patterns in cognitive complexity: meaning making more complex in work than in philanthropy, equal in both domains, or more complex in philanthropy than in work. For each participant, we identified a developmental growth edge that, if pursued, would improve their philanthropic impact. Findings suggest that donors' cognitive complexity structures how they approach philanthropy and can be variable (context dependent). Participants were not aware of the extent to which philanthropy could also be a growth opportunity for themselves. This lack of awareness impedes their own growth potential and, thus, the potential of their philanthropic gifts. We discuss theoretical and practical implications for philanthropy.     

Wage–hours contracts,overtime working and premium pay

This paper offers a contract-based theory to explain the determination of standard hours, overtime hours and overtime premium pay. We expand on the wage contract literature that emphasises the role of firm-specific human capital and that explores problems of contract efficiency in the face of information asymmetries between the firm and the worker. We first explore a simple wage–hours contract without overtime and show that incorporating hours into the contract may itself produce efficiency gains. We then show how the introduction of overtime hours, remunerated at premium rates, can further improve contract efficiency. Our modelling outcomes in respect of the relationship between the overtime premium and the standard wage rate relate closely to earlier developments in hedonic wage theory. Throughout, we emphasise the intuitive reasoning behind the theory and we also supply relevant empirical evidence. Mathematical derivations are provided in an Appendix.     

Lost in translation: A sociological study of the role of fundraisers in mediating gift giving in non-profit organisations

Recent years have seen a significant growth in the technical literature exploring charitable giving and fundraising. However, there is little empirical research on the actual workings of the fundraising process within non-profit organisations. In this paper, the day-to-day practice of fundraising is analysed from a sociological perspective that draws on the theories of the gift proposed by Mauss ( 1954 ), Titmuss ( 1970 ), and colleagues to propose an alternative, more complex giving model to strangers. Using qualitative data drawn from 44 interviews with fundraisers and their colleagues across 14 organisations, this study examines how fundraisers build and maintain long-term giving relationships with the individuals who provide financial support to non-profit organisations. Findings suggest that the primary gift giving relationship exists not between the giver and beneficiary but rather between the giver and fundraiser. The fundraiser, in this instance, actively employs tactics of reciprocity to both secure new gifts and ensure that givers continue to support their organisation. In doing so, fundraisers construct a narrative of the donor's imagined direct connection to the beneficiary and their “good gift”. Simultaneously, the fundraiser works with colleagues to construct the idea of the caring, connected, and sacrificial donor as a means to solicit their support in maintaining the continued gifting from these supporters. The paper concludes with a consideration of the ways in which these narrative constructions are incorporated into fundraising and organisational strategies; and two implications for perceptions of the role of philanthropy and fundraising.     

本土关系营销情境中的消费者心理契约研究反思

消费者心理契约主要是指消费者对企业在与之交易过程中或关系维系过程中,在规范要求、人际互动及竞争提升的环境影响下,对企业必须承担的某些责任的感知,是"潜规则"、"惯例",属于"礼"的范畴。本土消费者心理契约主要包括三个方面:规范责任、人际责任和发展责任,其中人际责任受本土文化影响最大;结合消费者个性因素、企业因素和社会环境因素,消费者心理契约可以分成8种类型。消费者心理契约不同方面对顾客关系的维系作用机制存在较大差异。