scholarly journals The Development of Vietnam’s Fair Trade: The Case Study of Fair Trade Organizations

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-45
Author(s):  
김선화 ◽  
응우엔하프엉 ◽  
Seungkwon Jang ◽  
황선영
Keyword(s):  
Fair Trade ◽  
Fair Trade Organizations

scholarly journals Escalation of Governance: Effects of Voluntary Standardization on Organizations, Markets and Standards in Swiss Fair Trade

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 94-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadine Arnold ◽  
Raimund Hasse
Keyword(s):  
Fair Trade ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Voluntary Standards ◽  
Institutional Approach ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Standard Documents ◽  
Fair Trade Organizations

Voluntary standards are a ubiquitous phenomenon in modern society that has recently started to attract sociologists’ profound interest. This paper concentrates on formal standardization over the long term and seeks to understand its effects on the coordination of an organizational field. Using an institutional approach we see standards as a form of governance that can be analytically distinguished from other modes of coordination, such as markets and hierarchical organizations. To empirically ground our understanding of formal standards’ consequences on field-level governance, we conducted a case study of the historical development of the Swiss fair trade field since the 1970s. Evidence used in this case study is drawn from 28 expert interviews, documentation and fair trade standard documents. While a formal set of voluntary standards was absent in its early development, in 1992 fair trade organizations started to use written standards as a means of achieving their objectives. Paradoxically, the introduction of a rational standardization system has led to escalating governance structures in the field. In the long run the launch of formal standards has caused more organizations, more markets, and even more standards. The use of standards as a means of creating differentiation instead of generating uniformity is thereby seen as the main reason for increased coordination demands. As a consequence, this article highlights standards’ potential to boost additional governance efforts and directs attention to the mutual enforcement of distinct modes of coordination.

scholarly journals The Distribution Strategy Of A Representative Fair Trade Organization In Korea: The Case Of Beautiful Coffee

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-86
Author(s):  
Hye-Jeong Cho ◽  
Kyung-hee Kim ◽  
Sung-Min Ryu ◽  
Chul Woo Moon
Keyword(s):  
Fair Trade ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Social Enterprise ◽  
Role Model ◽  
Sustainable Growth ◽  
Distribution Strategy ◽  
Financial Difficulties ◽  
Fair Trade Organizations ◽  
Practical Implications

This case study analyzes the distribution strategy of Beautiful Coffee, a leading fair trade organization in Korea. Because of their focus on matters of public interest, fair trade organizations often face financial difficulties, and such difficulties can limit their growth and force them to pursue differentiated distribution strategies. The results indicate that Beautiful Coffee can serve as a good role model for fair trade organizations and have important practical implications for firms pursuing sustainable growth as a social enterprise.

Fair trade in organic rice: a case study from Thailand

2002 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 45-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nuntana Udomkit ◽  
Adrian Winnett
Keyword(s):  
Fair Trade ◽  
Organic Rice

scholarly journals Placing the distant other on the shelf: An analysis and comparison of (fair trade) coffee packages in relation to commodity fetishism

2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-40
Author(s):  
Robbe Geysmans ◽  
Lesley Hustinx
Keyword(s):  
Fair Trade ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Direct Consequence ◽  
Commodity Fetishism ◽  
Textual Information ◽  
Fair Trade Coffee ◽  
Marketing Materials ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Fair Trade Organizations ◽  
Ground Coffee

Fair trade has been praised for ‘de-fetishizing’ commodities by providing consumers with information on the production of the commodity. Various empirical studies of fair trade marketing materials have generated critique of this vision. However, these focused on materials produced by engaged fair trade organizations. As the fair trade concept has entered the mainstream, fair trade products have found their way into supermarkets. In this setting, these products are confronted with competition, both internal (with other fair trade products) and external (with non-fair trade products). In this article, we argue for a broader focus when studying the relationship between fair trade and defetishization. Our argument is based on a study of whether and how defetishization is advanced on packages of ground coffee within the retail landscape of Flanders, Belgium. Several categories of packages can be distinguished, based on brand (e.g., fair trade advocate, regular brand, retailer house brand) and label (e.g. fair trade label; other social label; no label, but origin is emphasized in the product name). We demonstrate the difficulty of distinguishing these packages based on the visual and textual information they carry (beyond the label), which complicates the identification of any clearly distinct ‘fair trade message’ on these packages. Instead of serving a clear ‘defetishizing’ function, these messages are mixed, interchanged, and adapted. We argue that this could be a direct consequence of perceived or actual changes in the consumer publics inherent to the mainstreaming of fair trade.

scholarly journals Fair Trade for Whom? The Contribution of Fair Trade to Combatting Trade Inequities Faced by East Timorese Coffee Producers

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Kelle Howson
Keyword(s):  
Fair Trade ◽  
Market Access ◽  
Value Added ◽  
Ethical Consumption ◽  
Agricultural Producers ◽  
Mixed Methods Approach ◽  
Democratic Management ◽  
External Pressures ◽  
Governance Practices

<p>Fair trade aims to empower smallholder agricultural producers in the global South to gain more power over their industries by the formation of transparent and democratically representative cooperatives. However, critiques of the fair trade system have emerged in ethical consumption literature, and pockets suggest that individual producer contexts have more of a role to play in determining the benefits of fair trade than had been previously understood or addressed. This work constitutes a case study designed to examine implementation and practice anomalies within the Timorese fair trade certified coffee industry, and the ways in which they impact on producers’ livelihoods and development. A mixed methods approach is deployed to analyse the coffee cooperative Cooperativa Café Timor, and the producers who sell to it. It finds the cooperative to be subject to a number of external pressures that prevent it from passing on the benefits of fair trade certification to farmers. Governance practices in terms of transparency and grassroots representation are found to be significantly hindered by reliance on outside organisations for market access. Also, producers are found to remain superficially represented within commodity chains; having little or no access to value-added income. The involvement of American private enterprise within the East Timorese fair trade system has served to distance the fair trade cooperative from its grassroots, and acts as somewhat of a barrier to democratic management, participatory decision-making, and the realisation of the objectives of fair trade.</p>

scholarly journals Fair trade in building digital knowledge repositories: the knowledge economy as if researchers mattered

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 549-563 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanni De Grandis
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
Fair Trade ◽  
Knowledge Economy ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Knowledge Repositories ◽  
Academic Researchers ◽  
Digital Knowledge

Abstract Both a significant body of literature and the case study presented here show that digital knowledge repositories struggle to attract the needed level of data and knowledge contribution that they need to be successful. This happens also to high profile and prestigious initiatives. The paper argues that the reluctance of researchers to contribute can only be understood in light of the highly competitive context in which research careers need to be built nowadays and how this affects researchers’ quality of life. Competition and managerialism limit the discretion of researchers in sharing their results and in donating their working time. A growing corpus of research shows that academic researchers are increasingly overworked and highly stressed. This corroborates the point that the room for undertaking additional tasks with future and uncertain benefits is very limited. The paper thus recommends that promoters of digital knowledge repositories focus on the needs of the researchers who are expected to contribute their knowledge. In order to treat them fairly and to ensure the success of the repositories, knowledge sharing needs to be rewarded so as to improve the working conditions of contributors. In order to help implementing this researcher-centred approach, the paper proposes the idea of expediential trust: rewards for contributing should be such that rational, self-interested researchers would freely decide to contribute their knowledge and effort trusting that this would make them better off.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document