Telework in a Land of Overwork: It’s Not That Simple or Is It?

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted labor markets around the world. Workers and corporations scrambled to adjust their workstyles to a new normal, by avoiding the commute and working remotely from their homes or elsewhere. Japan is a country that stood out for its inability to adjust to the remote work environment. Comparative statistics show that Japan reported the lowest number of people engaged in remote work among the OECD countries, as well as the lowest percentage of corporations that offered remote work policies. In this article, I investigate why telework in Japan is difficult. The lack of telework in Japan may seem paradoxical, given the country’s reputation for being technologically advanced. I argue that it is not the technological infrastructure that is lacking in the Japanese workplace, but distinct features of work embedded in Japanese culture and its collectivist roots that prevent the effective implementation of telework. I rely on recently published data from various sources, and apply key sociological theories such as implicit contracts, gift exchange, dramaturgy, and impression management to substantiate my main arguments. The paper concludes by drawing on implications for the future of work in Japan.

Editorial Work and the Peer Review Economy of STS Journals

In this paper, we analyze the role of science and technology studies (STS) journal editors in organizing and maintaining the peer review economy. We specifically conceptualize peer review as a gift economy running on perpetually renewed experiences of mutual indebtedness among members of an intellectual community. While the peer review system is conventionally presented as self-regulating, we draw attention to its vulnerabilities and to the essential curating function of editors. Aside from inherent complexities, there are various shifts in the broader political–economic and sociotechnical organization of scholarly publishing that have recently made it more difficult for editors to organize robust cycles of gift exchange. This includes the increasing importance of journal metrics and associated changes in authorship practices; the growth and differentiation of the STS journal landscape; and changes in publishing funding models and the structure of the publishing market through which interactions among authors, editors, and reviewers are reconfigured. To maintain a functioning peer review economy in the face of numerous pressures, editors must balance contradictory imperatives: the need to triage intellectual production and rely on established cycles of gift exchange for efficiency, and the need to expand cycles of gift exchange to ensure the sustainability and diversity of the peer review economy.

Siberian Bukharans in Russian mission: gathering intelligence in Russia’s south-eastern borderlands, 17th-18th centuries

Siberian Bukharans were one of the most agile group of the native population of Western Siberia and the Urals in the 17th and 18th centuries. This paper analyzes information about the border activities of Bukharans, characterizes their participation in the implementation of Russian foreign policy. The author considers the phenomenon of intelligence and the intermediary and diplomatic role of the Bukharans through the study of various aspects of Russian policy on the southeastern borderlands. The result shows that Bukharans were involved in intelligence activities in several forms. The Russian authorities could interview Bukharans who came to trade; they could include Bukharans in Russian embassies; or they could send them into the steppe as independent agents. The geography of their missions in the 17th and 18th centuries included the Kuchum lands, the Kazakh khanates, the Oirat and Dzungar lands, as well as the Qing Empire. Bukharans participated in the negotiations as interpreters and they were sometimes allowed to participate in diplomatic ceremonies such as gift exchange. The intelligence activities of some Bukharans could go hand in hand with their trade operations. Recruiting Bukharans for intelligence gathering tsks allowed the Siberian and Orenburg authorities to conduct a more effective policy in the steppe borderlands, based on the knowledge of local realities. The Russian authorities used information provided by the Bukharans for purposes such as drawing up maps, informing the voivodes of the borderlands about military dangers, the movement of troops, and diplomatic negotiations.

It Is My Turn Now: How and Why ‘Single’ Women Complain about Non-Reciprocal Gift-Giving

This article employs the prism of gift-exchange to analyse the marginalised status of singles within social relations. We trace an emerging critique voiced by single women, who challenge the unilateral etiquette of gifting marital and family-making celebrations. While dominant social norms normalise gift-giving at weddings and subsequent family-related occasions, there are no commensurable opportunities for singles to receive back their accumulative investments in the life events of others. Drawing on various online sources, we explore the discursive articulations through which single women highlight the unfairness that underpins their position as constant givers. We show how single women manage the social risks that such public complaints entail, and how they claim to be worthy receivers themselves. This article offers singlehood as a valuable case study for engaging with broader questions concerning reciprocity – specifically, what happens when reciprocal gifting is not an established norm within ostensibly reciprocal social relations.

Kind or contented? An investigation of the gift exchange hypothesis in a natural field experiment in Colombia

The gift exchange hypothesis postulates that workers reciprocate above market-clearing wages with above-minimum effort. This hypothesis has received mixed support in dyadic employer-worker relationships. We present a field-experimental test to assess this hypothesis in the context of a triadic relationship in which only one out of two workers receives a pay increase. We conjecture that inequality aversion motivations may thwart positive reciprocity motivations and analyze the interaction between such motivations theoretically. Across three treatments, the pay increase is justified to workers based on either relative merit or relative need or was arbitrary as no justification was offered. Two conditions in which either one or both workers receive a bonus serve as the reference. In contrast to the gift exchange hypothesis, we find that pay increases lead to a decrease in productivity. Such a decrease is most sizable in the condition where both workers receive the bonus. A post-diction of this result is that workers interpret the monetary bonus as a signal of the employer’s contentment with their effort, which makes them feel entitled to reduce their effort. In other treatments, receiving the pay increase while the coworker does not has a positive effect on productivity, especially when the pay increase is based on merit. This result is consistent with statusseekingpreferences rather than aversion against advantageous inequality. Conversely, not receiving the pay increase while the coworker does, leads to lower productivity, especially when the pay increase is assigned based on relative needs.

Voluntary Work in Digital Contexts as Gift Exchange

Digital technologies have inspired a change in volunteering in nonprofit organizations. In this context, the engagement of volunteers is mainly self-organized, through online platforms or apps. It is the aim of this paper to analyze the volunteers’ motives, differentiating between self-interest and other-interest. This is important, since effects on organizational volunteer-related outcomes, such as volunteer engagement, recruitment and retention, are likely to occur. A gift exchange perspective is applied and a case study has been used for investigating an online-based nonprofit organization in Germany, consisting of qualitative interviews with experts and volunteers, documentary analysis and participatory observations as well as an online survey. The results show that the volunteers’ instrumental self-interest in gaining food, and their interests in other factors, such as the reduction of food wastage as a societal goal, occur simultaneously. This leads to paradoxes and problems on the organizational level. This study contributes to understanding volunteer engagement, recruitment and retention in digital nonprofit organizations.

Does Whistleblowing on Tax Evaders Reduce Ingroup Cooperation?

Whistleblowing is a powerful and rather inexpensive instrument to deter tax evasion. Despite the deterrent effects on tax evasion, whistleblowing can reduce trust and undermine agents’ attitude to cooperate with group members. Yet, no study has investigated the potential spillover effects of whistleblowing on ingroup cooperation. This paper reports results of a laboratory experiment in which subjects participate in two consecutive phases in unchanging groups: a tax evasion game, followed by a generalized gift exchange game. Two dimensions are manipulated in our experiment: the inclusion of a whistleblowing stage in which, after observing others’ declared incomes, subjects can signal other group members to the tax authority, and the provision of information about the content of the second phase before the tax evasion game is played. Our results show that whistleblowing is effective in both curbing tax evasion and improving the precision of tax auditing. Moreover, we detect no statistically significant spillover effects of whistleblowing on ingroup cooperation in the subsequent generalized gift exchange game, with this result being unaffected by the provision of information about the experimental task in the second phase. Finally, the provision of information does not significantly alter subjects’ (tax and whistleblowing) choices in the tax evasion game: thus, knowledge about perspective ingroup cooperation did not alter attitude toward whistleblowing.