Business Gifts and Related Meanings in International Context. Case: Finnish Business Gift Company

Abstract

Business gifts are important part of companies’ relations. The gifts are given in many occasions, like on birthdays or during a business meeting. This study fo-cused on the cross-cultural business gift giving, especially when the giver is Finnish and the receiver is from another culture. The study represented the most important points of the cross-cultural business gift giving, especially for the decision maker of the giving company and the business gift company. Cul-ture was in focus. The aim of the study was to describe the cross-cultural busi-ness gift decision-making process and the factors related to it.

The theoretical framework consisted of three main fields, decision-making and purchasing, international aspect, and value adding. The framework consisted of the basic information and research done on business gift field. This study was a case study. The case company was a Finnish business gift company. The nature of the study was descriptive and it was function-analytical. The empirical part of the research was qualitative. The qualitative data was collected by interview-ing three decision makers from the case company’s customer companies.

The result, a cross-cultural business gift decision-making process follows the stages of normal organizational decision-making and purchasing process with one difference: almost all of the feedback on post-giving stage does not come to decision maker’s consciousness. The previous researches support the results of the culture’s importance and awareness for both the giver’s and receiver’s cul-ture. That is why, it is important in the future, to develop the existing feedback system and to create a better and more systematic monitoring system.