Gift-Giving, Disreputable Exchange, and the Management of Donations in a Police Department

Fridman, Daniel; Luscombe, Alex

doi:10.1093/sf/sox063

Cited by 14 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…For instance, although we focus on the abstract patterns and commonalities across different areas of exchange, we expect this study can provide conceptual tools and research questions to those interested specifically in substantive areas of morally contested exchange, especially accusation and contestation of gray areas. This article provides a theoretical tool to apply to such areas as political bribery, commercial bribery, and reproductive markets (Åkerström 2014;Faulkner 2011;Fridman and Luscombe 2017;Hoang 2018;Rossman 2012;Spar 2006). Beyond the settings already covered in our vignettes, we expect similar patterns can be found in contexts such as pharmaceutical detailing, transactional sex/flirtation, Islamic finance, and investor-citizenship (Hoang 2015;King and Bearman 2017;Kuran 2004;Mears 2015;Surak 2016;Swidler and Watkins 2007;Zelizer 2005).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

It’s Only Wrong If It’s Transactional: Moral Perceptions of Obfuscated Exchange

Schilke

Rossman

2018

Am Sociol Rev

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A wide class of economic exchanges, such as bribery and compensated adoption, are considered morally disreputable precisely because they are seen as economic exchanges. However, parties to these exchanges can structurally obfuscate them by arranging the transfers so as to obscure that a disreputable exchange is occurring at all. In this article, we propose that four obfuscation structures-bundling, brokerage, gift exchange, and pawning-will decrease the moral opprobrium of external audiences by (1) masking intentionality, (2) reducing the explicitness of the reciprocity, and (3) making the exchange appear to be a type of common practice. We report the results from four experiments assessing participants' moral reactions to scenarios that describe either an appropriate exchange, a quid pro quo disreputable exchange, or various forms of obfuscated exchange. In support of our hypotheses, results show that structural obfuscation effectively mitigates audiences' moral offense at disreputable exchanges and that the effects are substantially mediated by perceived attributional opacity, transactionalism, and collective validity.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

It’s Only Wrong If It’s Transactional: Moral Perceptions of Obfuscated Exchange

Schilke

Rossman

2018

Am Sociol Rev

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“…Recognizing the “natural polysemy” of economic life (Fridman and Luscombe 2017:509), economic sociologists have shown the delicate work that goes into elucidating unclear connections between forms of exchange, media of exchange, and personal ties. Zelizer (2012:164) has argued that this work can be highly contested as “disputes arise when parties to an interaction have contradictory understandings of the relationship, when their values clash, when they are pursuing conflicting interests” (see also Zelizer 2005).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Sociologists have identified various practices of “clarification” by which people seek to discern among these equivocal meanings and agree on the moral commitments that different economic practices imply (Lainer-Vos 2013). For instance, given that money can be interpreted as a gift, a donation, a tip, or a bribe, it must be earmarked or framed in ways that make the transaction acceptable (Fridman and Luscombe 2017; Zelizer 1994). These practices elucidate the ambiguous situations in which misalignment between participants’ expectations could damage the transaction and the relationships (Bandelj 2012; Mears 2015).…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The morals and markets literature acknowledges moral ambiguity in a number of significant ways, implicitly mapping it onto variation in the moralization projects undertaken by different constituencies in different contexts. However, a systematic analysis of how the “natural polysemy” (Fridman and Luscombe 2017) of moral values affects decision-making is largely missing from the study of moral economies. This omission has resulted in two shortcomings for our understanding of how people moralize economic activity: we know little about situational variation in how the same actors moralize disparate economic goals, and we lack a deep understanding about economic exchanges that unfold without shared moral definitions (Lainer-Vos 2013; Patrick 2018; Stark 2011).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Exploiting Ambiguity: A Moral Polysemy Approach to Variation in Economic Practices

Altomonte

2020

Am Sociol Rev

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Sociologists have shown that the relationships people establish between moral orientations and market practices vary considerably across historical, geographic, and institutional contexts. Less attention has been paid to situational variation in how the same actors moralize different economic goals, especially in their workplace. This article offers an account of situational variation by theorizing the implications of the ambiguity of moral values for economic activity. I draw on the case of a post-acute care unit, where reimbursement policies create the contradictory demands of discharging elderly patients quickly while ensuring their safety to avoid re-hospitalization. Using ethnography and interviews, I show that the same actors switched between different normative evaluations of “independent aging” to legitimize divergent organizational goals. A shared understanding of autonomy as synonymous with “home” moralized the organizational mission of discharging patients off the unit. Expectations that elderly people attain independence by acknowledging need for assistance moralized the extension of services. Conversely, interpreting independence as a constellation of duties to be self-reliant moralized practices that lead to fast discharge. Based on these findings, I develop a framework of moral polysemy to analyze ambiguity as a resource for cooperation in organizations and a tool to expand understanding of moral economies.

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“…The obfuscated and non-contractual form of the freelancers' relation to marketing enabled such claims. Freelancers here used a common tactic of justifying disreputable exchange by denying that FAM-trips involved compulsive reciprocity (Fridman and Luscombe, 2017). The SATW pushed to formalise these shifting norms, as its Code of Ethics explicitly set 'standards of professionalism' on FAM-trips and gave rules to avoid 'conflicts of interest'.…”

Section: Critical Moment: Control Without Obligations?mentioning

confidence: 99%

From Contract to Speculation: New Relations of Work and Production in Freelance Travel Journalism

Rosenkranz

2018

Work, Employment and Society

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This qualitative case study of travel journalism in the USA explores how freelancers produce on speculation because publications do not contractually guarantee pay or advanced resources for travel. Freelance travel journalists therefore experience their work as an investment into an uncertain return in an undefined future. This article shows how such speculation manifests itself as a new productive process and relations of organisational externalisation in lean capitalism. Examining the changing obligations between freelancers and publications without assignment-contracts, this study argues that speculation presents the obfuscation of production. It externalises the risks of production onto the freelancer; reduces organisational control over production; and changes occupational norms and practices.

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Gift-Giving, Disreputable Exchange, and the Management of Donations in a Police Department

Cited by 14 publications

References 40 publications

It’s Only Wrong If It’s Transactional: Moral Perceptions of Obfuscated Exchange

It’s Only Wrong If It’s Transactional: Moral Perceptions of Obfuscated Exchange

Exploiting Ambiguity: A Moral Polysemy Approach to Variation in Economic Practices

From Contract to Speculation: New Relations of Work and Production in Freelance Travel Journalism

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