3.2. Gifts
In many cultures gifts given directly, as in the form of an invitation to dinner or other favors of this order, are frankly expected as marks of respect or as proof of amicable relations. Refusing them can be taken as a sign of rejection or even as an affront. In other cultures the fact that a company presents potential customers with gifts may be criticized as bordering on corruption, or at least as ethically suspect. (18) The problem lies not in the giving as such but in the value of what is given. Unproblematic under a certain limit, as soon as this is exceeded the practice may be looked upon askance.
Various organizations have drawn up guidelines on how their employees should act with respect to the gifts they give to customers or business friends as well as those they themselves receive. The practice may be expressly forbidden, pointers to what is appropriate given, or an upper limit specified-value must not exceed 100 dollars, for example. A critic of the pharmaceutical industry once put it thus: “Whatever you can eat or drink in a day does not constitute corruption.” As both recreations can be enjoyed at differing levels of quality, however (a 1947 vintage Bordeaux is in a loftier league than, say, a bottle of last year's Valpolicella), purists may well regard this way of demarcating the borderline with septicism.
Guidelines are never the whole answer to the question, though, on account of factors such as a different standard of living between giver and receiver, cultural dissimilarities and divergent social norms, or quite simply the grey areas inherent in giving and receiving. What always remains is a latitude of interpretation and discretion that demands an independent exercise of judgment on the part of the person concerned.
The intention of the giver is always a pertinent consideration in evaluating the merits of a case. If a gift is meant simply as a friendly gesture, free of any expectation that a reciprocal situation might arise-one need not always have ulterior motives in mind-then there is not much of a problem. Still, such gifts are not altogether unproblematic either, since they do serve to generate good will that can pay off later in some other connection. The sociologist Neckel refers in this nexus to the “Don Corleone Principle,” describing how subtly habit-forming gifts can get to be. (19)
If on the other hand gifts are bluntly intended to spur the receiver into performing or omitting to perform a certain action within a relatively well-defined period of time in the interest of the giver, clearly what we have is a corrupt maneuver. As a general rule one is best advised to desist from giving or accepting gifts that go beyond small kindnesses and friendly gestures.
The second test that acceptability has to pass is, as already noted, a gift's value. Obviously a ballpoint or fountain pen – assuming it is not a chic designer model -is not in the same class as computer equipment given for private use or airfare to coveted destinations.
In my experience a good way to stay clear of any suspicion of corruptibility is to have the gifts that employees have been given personally turned over to the company and made available to everyone – through a raffle, for example. During an assignment in a developing country in Africa I was, to my utter surprise, showered with gifts. At the end of my first year I had them put on display in the company conference room, numbered, and raffled off among the full workforce. In this way everyone from the night watchman to the secretaries to management staff got the chance to acquire desirable items that would otherwise have been beyond their means.
Most of the gifts came from customers who knew that a certain discretionary elbow room existed where the provision of goods in short supply (on account of lacking import licenses) or the granting of discounts were concerned. Without wishing to insinuate that our customers hoped to point me in a certain direction with their gifts, I can report that there were no more gifts once the word had got around about how they had been disposed of.
As a preventive measure companies and other organizations are well-advised to oblige employees whose decision-making authority leaves them particularly exposed to temptation to inform their superiors of any gifts received. With the matter out in the open one can decide on how to handle it fairly.