Abstract:In recent years, researchers have observed the process of mainstreaming Fair Trade and the emergence of alternative sustainability standards in the coffee industry. The underlying market dynamics that have contributed to these developments are, however, under-researched. Insight into these dynamics is important to understand how markets can develop to favor sustainability. This study examines the major developments in the market for certified coffee in the Netherlands. It finds that, in the creation of a marke… Show more
“…For instance, Mike Barry, Head of Sustainable Business at Marks and Spencer, commented during his address at the 2013 ISEAL conference that ecolabels will increasingly address the supply chain rather than consumers, as consumers make their purchase decisions in 30 s and retailers cannot put 10 labels on all their products. The description in Ingenbleek and Reinders (2013) of how supermarkets rather than consumers drove adoption of various eco-labels is consistent with this view, and we have heard similar arguments from many other leading practitioners who we have met at various symposia. Multiple stakeholders are involved in this voluntary regulatory space, each with a distinct role and each influencing the use of eco-labels.…”
Section: Hypothesis Developmentsupporting
confidence: 69%
“…3.53.) Fairtrade is more widely known, especially in the US, but in fact the two standards are identical and mutually accepted as equivalent (see Ingenbleek and Reinders (2013) for a detailed description of the two). The data suggest that the experts who were familiar with Max Havelaar rated it, correctly, the same as Fairtrade, while experts who were not familiar with Max Havelaar did not rate it at all.…”
Eco-labels'' are an increasingly important form of private regulation for sustainability in areas such as carbon emissions, water consumption, ethical sourcing, or organic produce. The growing interest and popularity of eco-labels has also been coupled with growing concerns about their credibility, in part because the standard-setting and conformity assessment practices that eco-labels adopt exhibit striking differences. In this paper, we assess which assurance practices contribute to eco-labels being perceived as better governed, in the eyes of experts as well as the media. Unlike previous studies, which are mostly conceptual, qualitative, or focused on one or few eco-labels, we study a large set of eco-labels, combining data from three different sources. Our findings suggest that experts and media are primarily concerned about ''re-assurance'' practices, looking for one or preferably multiple layers of ''re-assurance'' that independent parties are overseeing the eco-label and the firms certified under it.
“…For instance, Mike Barry, Head of Sustainable Business at Marks and Spencer, commented during his address at the 2013 ISEAL conference that ecolabels will increasingly address the supply chain rather than consumers, as consumers make their purchase decisions in 30 s and retailers cannot put 10 labels on all their products. The description in Ingenbleek and Reinders (2013) of how supermarkets rather than consumers drove adoption of various eco-labels is consistent with this view, and we have heard similar arguments from many other leading practitioners who we have met at various symposia. Multiple stakeholders are involved in this voluntary regulatory space, each with a distinct role and each influencing the use of eco-labels.…”
Section: Hypothesis Developmentsupporting
confidence: 69%
“…3.53.) Fairtrade is more widely known, especially in the US, but in fact the two standards are identical and mutually accepted as equivalent (see Ingenbleek and Reinders (2013) for a detailed description of the two). The data suggest that the experts who were familiar with Max Havelaar rated it, correctly, the same as Fairtrade, while experts who were not familiar with Max Havelaar did not rate it at all.…”
Eco-labels'' are an increasingly important form of private regulation for sustainability in areas such as carbon emissions, water consumption, ethical sourcing, or organic produce. The growing interest and popularity of eco-labels has also been coupled with growing concerns about their credibility, in part because the standard-setting and conformity assessment practices that eco-labels adopt exhibit striking differences. In this paper, we assess which assurance practices contribute to eco-labels being perceived as better governed, in the eyes of experts as well as the media. Unlike previous studies, which are mostly conceptual, qualitative, or focused on one or few eco-labels, we study a large set of eco-labels, combining data from three different sources. Our findings suggest that experts and media are primarily concerned about ''re-assurance'' practices, looking for one or preferably multiple layers of ''re-assurance'' that independent parties are overseeing the eco-label and the firms certified under it.
“…Such differentiated purchasing strategies are possible for roasting companies because, as Fridell points out, “most ethical consumers make little distinction between various ‘sustainability’ initiatives, which gives corporations considerable flexibility in determining their strategies to carve out territory in niche markets” ( p. 78). In the case of coffee, brand loyalty and the importance of alternative attributes, such as taste and price, make final consumers (apart from a small but loyal core of Fairtrade supporters) reluctant drivers of demand change (Harbaugh et al ; Ingenbleek & Reinders ). As the founder of the Dutch Fairtrade initiative reflected:I was convinced that power would be with the consumers, but it turned out otherwise.…”
The potential of transnational private governance initiatives to constitute effective alternatives to state‐led regulation of global value chains rests on their ability to scale up and become institutionalized in a given sector. This study examines whether such institutionalization has occurred in the coffee sector, the commodity with the most widespread adoption of certified products and over 30 years’ experience of private governance, and tests hypotheses on facilitating and inhibiting conditions. It finds that while norm generation around responsible supply chain management and the organizational institutionalization of standard‐setting bodies is well advanced, the practice of internalizing social and environmental externalities through the routinized production and purchase of higher priced certified goods continues to be questioned by industry actors. Indeed, conditions that favored normative and organizational institutionalization, such as high levels of industry concentration, product differentiation, and deliberative interaction, are shown to represent barriers to the practice‐oriented institutionalization of market‐driven regulatory governance.
“…In exchange fields, when peripheral actors introduce new technologies or business models, they may be successful in changing an industry (Leblebici et al, 1991;Munir, 2005), though they are likely to prompt competitive retaliation, and they are sometimes acquired by elite actors in an attempt to preserve those actors' power positions Hensmans, 2003). On the other hand, peripheral actors pursuing niche positions may "fly under the radar" (Leung, Zietsma, & Peredo, 2014), seeming to have symbolic and material immunity in these niche positions, as long as the niches remain small and unthreatening (Ingenbleek & Reinders, 2013;Quirke, 2013). In issue fields, which peripheral actors may create by raising a grievance, these actors usually do not accept the legitimacy of the rules and governance mechanisms that dominate in the field.…”
The concept of an institutional field is one of the cornerstones of institutional theory, and yet the concept has been stretched both theoretically and empirically, making consolidation of findings across multiple studies more difficult. In this article, we review the literature and analyze empirical studies of institutional fields to build scaffolding for the cumulation of research on institutional fields. Our review revealed two types of fields: exchange and issue fields, with three subtypes of each. We describe their characteristics. Subsequently, we review field conditions in the extant literature and develop a typology based on two dimensions: the extent of elaboration of institutional infrastructure and the extent to which there is an agreed upon prioritization of logics. We discuss the implications of field types and conditions for isomorphism, agency, and field change, based on a review of the literature that revealed six pathways of field change and the factors affecting them. We outline a research agenda based on our review highlighting the need for consolidation of field studies and identify several outstanding issues that are in need of further research.
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