Time: The gift that keeps on giving

Marketing and consumer behaviour research has conceptualised time as a resource that affords gift giving, rather than as a gift in its own right. This study advances the idea of time as a gift and examines how meaning is produced through the gifting of time and how such meaning contributes to the well-being of the self and others. We theorise time as an effortful enactment that materialises across three dimensions of meaning: purpose, mattering, and comprehension. Our analysis shows how the gift of time generates meaning for the self (purpose) and for others (mattering and comprehension), unfolding through unidirectional, bidirectional, and circular temporal orientations. Findings reveal the autotelic nature of gift giving of time within mundane consumption practices, enacted as self-time, social time, and committed time across multiple roles in Western societies. We contribute to marketing theory by conceptualising time as a meaningful and transformative gift that sustains well-being.