IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/rae/jouraf/v101y2020i4p489-506.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do French agrifood co-ops have a head start in Corporate Social Responsibility? An initial examination of French co-ops and their practices

Author

Listed:
  • Maryline Filippi

    (INRAE UMR SAD-APT, University of Paris-Saclay, 1 rue Claude Bernard, 75005 Paris, France
    Bordeaux Sciences Agro, University of Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France)

Abstract

Although corporate social responsibility (CSR) is becoming increasingly widespread, research on how companies integrate it is still relatively scarce. The aim of this article is to analyse how the agrifood co-ops that invest in this process develop their economic, environmental and social sustainability. While cooperatives are undoubtedly companies that are part of the social and solidarity-based economy, does this make them inherently more responsible than commercial companies? Using a survey of existing reference sources and adopting Porter’s ‘shared value’ approach, we examine ISO 26000, the only international voluntary norm for CSR. Our hypothesis is that, if they are to ensure full commitment to CSR, these co-ops need to rethink their relations with all their stakeholders. Our methodology employs an original database of the concrete commitments of all the co-ops engaged in this reference framework completed by interviews. The results show that (1) greater proximity to consumers is a major motivation for them to innovate and adopt sustainability practices, thereby rendering (2) the distinction between large and small co-ops less significant. Our findings also suggest that in the absence of legal constraints, a local eco-system combining sustainable supply chains to create and share added value with all stakeholders could prove an effective incentive, with positive impacts on both global and local levels.

Suggested Citation

  • Maryline Filippi, 2020. "Do French agrifood co-ops have a head start in Corporate Social Responsibility? An initial examination of French co-ops and their practices," Review of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Studies, INRA Department of Economics, vol. 101(4), pages 489-506.
  • Handle: RePEc:rae:jouraf:v:101:y:2020:i:4:p:489-506
    DOI: 10.1007/s41130-020-00131-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41130-020-00131-x
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s41130-020-00131-x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. World Commission on Environment and Development,, 1987. "Our Common Future," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780192820808.
    2. Aurélien Acquier & Franck Aggeri, 2008. "Une généalogie de la pensée managériale sur la RSE," Post-Print halshs-00645679, HAL.
    3. Lorenzo Sacconi & Giacomo Degli Antoni, 2009. "A Theoretical Analysis of the Relationship between Social Capital and Corporate Social Responsibility: Concepts and Definitions," Chapters, in: Silvia Sacchetti & Roger Sugden (ed.), Knowledge in the Development of Economies, chapter 7, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Giovanni Dosi, 2000. "Innovation, Organization and Economic Dynamics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1248.
    5. Wendy Stubbs, 2017. "Sustainable Entrepreneurship and B Corps," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(3), pages 331-344, March.
    6. Blanche Segrestin & Kevin Levillain & Vernac Stéphane & Armand Hatchuel, 2015. "La "Société à Objet Social Etendu" : un nouveau statut pour l'entreprise," Post-Print hal-01110767, HAL.
    7. Naoufel Mzoughi & Gilles Grolleau & Céline Thévenot & Nicolas Riedinger, 2008. "La norme ISO 14001 est-elle efficace ? Une étude économétrique sur l'industrie française," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 411(1), pages 3-19.
    8. Silvia Sacchetti & Roger Sugden (ed.), 2009. "Knowledge in the Development of Economies," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13301.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Maryline Filippi & Eric Bidet & Nadine Richez-Battesti, 2023. "Building a Better World: The Contribution of Cooperatives and SSE Organizations to Decent Work and Sustainable Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-17, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bhisma K. Bhusal & James R. Wilson & Susana Franco, 2014. "Rethinking Policy Intervention for the Transition towards Competitive Trade-Led Green Growth," Working Papers 2014R02, Orkestra - Basque Institute of Competitiveness.
    2. Denise Fischer & Malte Brettel & René Mauer, 2020. "The Three Dimensions of Sustainability: A Delicate Balancing Act for Entrepreneurs Made More Complex by Stakeholder Expectations," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 163(1), pages 87-106, April.
    3. Fabio Sabatini & Francesca Modena & Ermanno Tortia, 2014. "Do cooperative enterprises create social trust?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 42(3), pages 621-641, March.
    4. Fabio Sabatini & Francesco Sarracino, 2013. "Will Facebook save or destroy social capital? An empirical investigation into the effect of online interactions on trust and networks," Department of Economics University of Siena 692, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    5. Giacomo, Degli Antoni & Fabio, Sabatini, 2013. "Disentangling the relationship between nonprofit and social capital: the role of social cooperatives and social welfare associations in the development of networks of strong and weak ties," MPRA Paper 44860, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Sabatini, Fabio & Sarracino, Francesco, 2014. "E-participation: Social Capital and the Internet," Economy and Society 186606, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    7. Sabrina Tabares & Andrés Morales & Sara Calvo & Valentín Molina Moreno, 2021. "Unpacking B Corps’ Impact on Sustainable Development: An Analysis from Structuration Theory," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(23), pages 1-21, December.
    8. Siarhei Manzhynski & Frank Figge, 2020. "Coopetition for sustainability: Between organizational benefit and societal good," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(3), pages 827-837, March.
    9. Abraham Carmeli & Ari Dothan & Dev Kumar Boojihawon, 2020. "Resilience of sustainability‐oriented and financially‐driven organizations," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(1), pages 154-169, January.
    10. Filippi, Maryline, 2018. "Reinforcing Sustainable Supply Chains: Lessons from French agricultural cooperatives," 166th Seminar, August 30-31, 2018, Galway, West of Ireland 276198, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    11. Matthias Filser & Sascha Kraus & Norat Roig-Tierno & Norbert Kailer & Ulrike Fischer, 2019. "Entrepreneurship as Catalyst for Sustainable Development: Opening the Black Box," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(16), pages 1-18, August.
    12. Lorenzo Sacconi, 2011. "A Rawlsian View of CSR and the Game Theory of its Implementation (III): Conformism, Equilibrium Refinement and Selection," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Lorenzo Sacconi & Giacomo Degli Antoni (ed.), Social Capital, Corporate Social Responsibility, Economic Behaviour and Performance, chapter 2, pages 42-79, Palgrave Macmillan.
    13. Fabio Sabatini & Francesco Sarracino, 2019. "Online Social Networks and Trust," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 142(1), pages 229-260, February.
    14. Lorenzo Sacconi, 2011. "Multi-stakeholder governance for effectively sharing social responsibility 1 (social contracts, deliberative democracy and endogenous conformity)," Econometica Working Papers wp26, Econometica.
    15. Pablo Muñoz & Boyd Cohen, 2018. "Sustainable Entrepreneurship Research: Taking Stock and looking ahead," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 300-322, March.
    16. Mechthild Donner & Anne Verniquet & Jan Broeze & Katrin Kayser & Hugo de Vries, 2021. "Critical success and risk factors for circular business models valorising agricultural waste and by-products," Post-Print hal-03004851, HAL.
    17. Cornelis Leeuwen & Jos Frijns & Annemarie Wezel & Frans Ven, 2012. "City Blueprints: 24 Indicators to Assess the Sustainability of the Urban Water Cycle," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 26(8), pages 2177-2197, June.
    18. CHEN, Helen S.Y., 2020. "Designing Sustainable Humanitarian Supply Chains," OSF Preprints m82ar, Center for Open Science.
    19. Jim Butcher, 2006. "The United Nations International Year of Ecotourism: a critical analysis of development implications," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 6(2), pages 146-156, April.
    20. Denise Ravet, 2011. "Lean production: the link between supply chain and sustainable development in an international environment," Post-Print hal-00691666, HAL.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Corporate social responsibility . Agrifood co-ops . Sustainable supply chains . Sustainability . ISO 26000;

    JEL classification:

    • Q01 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - General - - - Sustainable Development
    • Q13 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Markets and Marketing; Cooperatives; Agribusiness

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:rae:jouraf:v:101:y:2020:i:4:p:489-506. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Nathalie Saux-Nogues (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inrapfr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.