Gift

Gift-giving is seen as an act of reciprocity, and often misinterpreted as bribery by Westerners; however, it appears to be an important part of the Asian culture and can be regard as a form of relationship investment, which can rouse interactions between businesses if it cultivated well (D’Souza, 2003). Thus, we consider business gift-giving as a way of relationship investment.

Webster's Third New International Dictionary defines gift as "something given to someone without expectation of a return". “Gift” means exchanges of services and products which help people to build connections with others by the concept of reciprocity(Joy, 2001). However, the exchange of goods or services which regards as a voluntary action for providing gift receiver benefits to improve relationship between people, and it is part of cultural and social behaviors (Belk, 1977; Hollenbeck, Peters,

& Zinkhan, 2006; Joy, 2001; Larsen & Watson, 2001; Sherry, 1983).

Business gifts are a form of non-verbal and symbolic communication, and exchange of gifts is part of the personal relationship which convey a variety of messages in their culture and gift-giving between companies has become usual to a large extent (Bruhn, 1996).This study, business gift refers to the gift that a sales representative sends in some holidays or festivals, during visiting to his buyers who owns the power of making business decisions. As business gifts are provided in the hopes of creating a positive first impression that might help to create an initial business relationship;

sometimes business gifts may be regard as expecting a favor in return for something or a favor (Arunthanes, Tansuhaj, & Lemak, 1994).

2.4.1 Gift-giving

Gift-giving is a very common phenomenon in modern society, since gift-giving is common method for people to maintain or established interpersonal relationships (Komter & Vollebergh, 1997). There are many scholars explored gift-giving, and they try to figure out why people give gifts. For example, Wolfinbarger and Yale (1993) suggested there are three motivations for interpersonal gift-giving which are experiential motivation, obligated motivation and practical motivation. Experiential motivation is an attitude towards giving gifts just for enjoyment purpose; obligated motivation refers to an attitude that giving gift is for reciprocation purpose or requirements of social norms;

practical motivation is an attitude towards giving gift for supporting the receivers (Wolfinbarger and Yale, 1993). Sherry (1983) pointed out that gift-giving motivations may range from altruistic to agonistic. Sherry(1983) suggested that using gift can modulate each other's relationship such as maintain the desired degree of intimacy.

In gift-giving process, to give, to receive, and to reciprocate is an individual's obligation (Gouldner, 1960), and cultural embeddedness is why people follow those obligations (Sherry, 1983). The giving of a gift by one person to another is unlike other exchanges. The gifting process is important such as in social integration that it has four functions which are economic exchange, social exchange, communication exchange and socialization (Belk, 1977).

In Chinese culture, giving-gift is a significant social activity, people through gift-giving to express their respect and manners to recipient. When they give gifts, they will expect recipient to re-gift fairly. For example, in Asian business context, people will bring some small gift as they visit their clients to show their respect and try to strengthen mutual relationship thus exchange for preferential treatment in business dealings in the

future such as change delivery time or modify product. D’Souza (2003) found that eighty three percent of respondents preferred to be loyal to the supplier who gave them gifts and would also get the supplier to modify products accordingly if required. It is a cultural practice that people give gifts in holidays or ceremonies such as Chinese New Year, birthday, promotion, wedding, and other festival or special occasions. Schieffelin (1980) pointed out that gift-giving to friends, family, colleagues, or even working partners in some special occasions is a rhetorical gesture in social communication and interpersonal interaction. Mick and DeMoss (1990) defined gift-giving as a behavior of an exchange of tangible or intangible goods or services between giver and recipient.

2.4.2 Gift value

In most of conditions, gift of higher monetary value are evaluated more favorably (Larsen & Watson, 2001). Here gift value is refers to the economic value of a gift, because economic value this concept is the most familiar to people which is evaluate gift value by its market value or monetary value and expected receive the equivalent feedback in the future (Belk & Coon, 1993; Bodur & Grohmann, 2005).Gift evaluation means the recipient’s perception of the gift’s significance and appeal (Bodur

& Grohmann, 2005). The difference between gift value and gift evaluation means that a gift of relatively monetary value can be evaluated advantageously if it is ideal to the recipient or if it is a symbol of a positive relationship. Gift value also affects the recipient’s reciprocation likelihood by felt gratitude to the gift giver; a gift of greater value causes greater feeling of obligation to the giver, and then improve reciprocation likelihood (Bodur & Grohmann, 2005).

2.4.3 Gift type

The distinction of personalized versus standardized gifts in business-to-business gift giving is of the recipient's subjective judgment. Standard gift is defined here as the gift that sales representative sent to all regular customers or potential customers in holidays or festival; however, personalized gifts need to research on customer preferences and may be more costly than standard gifts which may result in more favorable gift evaluation and greater reciprocation likelihood (Bodur & Grohmann, 2005). The type of gifts might impact a purchasing executive's feelings of obligation to repay the supplier.