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Mainstreaming and its Discontents: Fair Trade, Socially Responsible Investing, and Industry Trajectories

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  • Curtis Child

Abstract

Over time, according to popular and academic accounts, alternative trade initiatives [such as fair trade, organics, forest certification, and socially responsible investing (SRI)] almost invariably lose their oppositional stance and go mainstream. That is, they lose their alternative, usually peripheral, and often contrarian character. In this paper, I argue that this is not always the case and that the path to going mainstream is not always an unproblematic one. I observe that while scholars have documented various aspects of specific alternative trade initiatives, little comparative work has been done to theorize their different trajectories. To advance the scholarship, I compare two alternative trade movements, fair trade and SRI, and develop three hypotheses—the relation motivations hypothesis, the material interests hypothesis, and the organization of credibility hypothesis—that explain why going mainstream has been so hotly contested in the fair trade movement but not the SRI movement. I articulate these hypotheses and evaluate their merits. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Curtis Child, 2015. "Mainstreaming and its Discontents: Fair Trade, Socially Responsible Investing, and Industry Trajectories," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 130(3), pages 601-618, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:130:y:2015:i:3:p:601-618
    DOI: 10.1007/s10551-014-2241-5
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    3. Aurélie Carimentrand & Jérôme Ballet, 2018. "Fair trade twin towns Pondicherry and Auroville: a fresh look at activism," Post-Print halshs-01863261, HAL.
    4. Luluk Widyawati, 2020. "A systematic literature review of socially responsible investment and environmental social governance metrics," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(2), pages 619-637, February.
    5. Sara Dahlman, 2023. "Tinkering Toward the Good––Sustainable Investing Between Utopian Imaginaries and Actualizations," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 185(2), pages 281-297, June.

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