Abstract
The present study combines Belk's (1979) conceptualisation of gift-giving functions with the McLeod and Chaffee (1972) model of family communication systems to explore gift-giving family styles in individualistic and collectivistic cultures. The major objective of the research was to identify gift-giving family styles across cultures, using the McLeod and Chaffee model as a framework for the inquiry. Data for this research was collected through a series of in-depth interviews with sixty-eight individuals (sixteen families) of Australian Anglo-Celtic and Sino-Vietnamese backgrounds. The major findings from this research were that: (1) the four family styles outlined by the McLeod and Chaffee model are indeed reflected in four distinct gift-giving family styles; (2) the styles are distributed differently in the two cultures, with the Anglo-Celtic higher on the socio-oriented dimension and the Sino-Vietnamese higher on the concept-oriented dimension; and (3) even within the most prevalent family gift-giving style, i.e. the consensual, there are distinct cultural differences between the two groups that reflect the collectivism-individualism continuum.
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Hill, C., Romm, C.T. (2015). Gift-Giving Family Styles: A Cross-Cultural Study with Consumer Socialisation Implications. In: Grant, K., Walker, I. (eds) Proceedings of the 1995 World Marketing Congress. Developments in Marketing Science: Proceedings of the Academy of Marketing Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17311-5_47
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