The social responsibility of business has become an usual theme of study in Brazil in the Business Administration area. However, a critical aspect related to the subject should be analyzed in deep: what is the basis of the model of corporate social management in Brazil? We believe that conceptions of other disciplines, such as Sociology and Anthropology, may contribute to a wider understanding of the subject. Therefore, we used in the theoretical research the studies of the ethnographer Marcel Mauss about the gift, and its modern interpretation, as well as a variety of conceptions related to solidarity. The main objective of this research is to analyze if the management of corporate social responsibility can be related to the principles of the gift and solidarity. To achieve this goal, in addition to the theoretical research, a case study of an organization that develops social programs throughout the country was made. The company studied is Petrobras S.A. According to the gift, the social relations are formed by the poles of interest, obligation, pleasure and spontaneity. In this study, we observed that the four poles of the gift exist in the management of the corporate social responsibility of the company analyzed, in degrees that vary according to the specificity of each project. We also noted that the conception of solidarity, intrinsically related to mutual-dependency, is central in the management of corporate social responsibility, despite the fact that the social actors involved, in majority, associate it to a philanthropic practice.