Is fair trade labeling fair? A perspective through the relationships between producers, third-party certifiers and consumers

Mantiaba Coulibaly-Ballet (1) , Loïc Sauvée (2, 3)

1 GRM - Groupe de Recherche en Management - EA 4711
2 UniLaSalle
3 INTERACT - Innovation, Territoire, Agriculture et Agro-industrie, Connaissance et Technologie

How actors are in a broad sense able managing their actions within the global fairtrade system? That means what is fair and what is not fair in the relationship and why? To tackle these questions we mobilize literature about the fairtrade system to define and characterize this concept, and delineate its consequences. We use researches focused on inter organizational relationships and governance mechanisms to analyze fair actions between producers, third party certifiers and their partners in the fairtrade market. We analyze consumers' perceptions about fair and non fair actions in the fairtrade market. We show that the fairtrade system is not in itself outside the picture; the fairtrade principles should be viewed and analyzed also from the concrete situations in place. So it is important to consider practices and strategies of people and organizations that implement the system.

Mots clés: actors fairness fairtrade governance relationships; actors; fairness; fairtrade; governance; relationships

Domaines: Gestion et management

Mantiaba Coulibaly-Ballet, Loïc Sauvée. Is fair trade labeling fair? A perspective through the relationships between producers, third-party certifiers and consumers. 4th Fair Trade International Symposium and GeoFairTrade Final Conference, Apr 2012, Liverpool, United Kingdom. ⟨hal-04363353⟩