Assets are ubiquitous, required for consumer behaviors and meaningful in American society. Though assets have a central role in society, they have been considered primarily for what they can buy. This continual focus on assets as an instrument for exchange masks the fact that assets also may serve as a medium for communicating sentiment. Conceptually, I study the relationships individuals have with assets by examining asset gifting. Using qualitative research methods, I examine a cross-section of white and African American families to describe how assets participate in the lives of individuals in their roles as both family members and consumers. In my study of intergenerational asset gifting, I reveal the salient nature of an asset's sentimental value as it is gifted across generations, and expand upon theories of gifting and budgeting. I find that across race and class, individuals participate in asset gifting, often emulating goal-derived referents to accumulate assets. I develop the concept of intergenerational bridging reciprocity, the process of satisfying the social debt incurred when gifts are accepted by providing asset gifts to future generations and returning affect to previous generations. The mechanism enabling the transfer of sentiment along with exchange value is the process of earmarking assets based on meaning and relationships. I define and introduce this as emotional budgeting, the system of accumulating, tracking and managing sentiment associated with assets. My research examines allocations of assets across emotional and mental budgets and exposes a unique pattern of consumer behavior motivations resulting from these allocations, which I represent in a typology. This typology reflects the relationship between budget allocations and self-view. Finally, I present a model of asset gifting which includes mental and emotional budgeting processes across the family and the market. Theories developed in the present research are grounded in the experience of asset gifting participants. Nonetheless, the emergent theorizing is most likely generalizable to the broader relationship individuals have with assets and is deserving of additional research. In addition to potential avenues for scholarly research, I also identify insights which may be useful for practitioners developing and marketing offerings.

Last modified

• 06/05/2018

Creator

• Tonya P Williams

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/N2RX2D

Subject

• Marketing

Keyword

• Consumer Motivations
• Gift-giving
• Intergenerational Bridging Reciprocity
• Asset Gifting
• Budgeting

Date created

• 2007-05-10

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright