20 Jan 2010 2:30pm - 4:30pm CRASSH 17 Mill Lane

Description

Speakers:  Alexa Clay & Juliane Reinecke
 
Alexa Clay (SustainAbility)
Crafting Markets

The New Economics Foundation and SustainAbility are presenting their new action-oriented research agenda on the theme of 'Crafting Markets' and are seeking input on their ideas from the Business & Society Group.

Summary:
The realization that markets are socially embedded provides a foundation for a new economic landscape. Markets cannot be created by companies alone – markets are the manifestation of institutions, regulatory incentives, and coordinated action. Most importantly, markets are operational because they have secured – formally or informally – a social licence to operate. Leveraging insights from design-thinking, economic sociology, and environmental economics, we explore a variety of market archetypes that support sustainable development aims – asking, how can we craft markets to better deliver social and environmental value?

Established in 1987, SustainAbility is a strategy consultancy and think tank working with senior corporate decision makers to achieve transformative leadership on the sustainability agenda. We offer a range of services and undertake advocacy in order to create financial value at the same time as addressing environmental, social and governance issues in an integrated manner. For more information visit: http://www.sustainability.com/

The New Economics Foundation is an independent think-and-do tank that inspires and demonstrates real economic well-being. For more information visit: http://www.neweconomics.org/gen/

Juliane Reinecke (PhD Candidate, Judge Business School)
Emerging Standards Markets: Multiplicity and Reciprocal Positioning of Standards in the Sustainable Coffee Industry
Co-authored paper with Stephan Manning (College of Management, University of Massachusetts Boston) and Oliver von Hagen (International Trade Centre, Geneva)

Why do multiple self-regulatory models persist in the sustainable coffee industry? This paper investigates the social arena of private standardization systems and focuses on the dynamics between competing niche and mainstream sustainability labels and its consequences for the global coffee industry. While the notion of institutional isomorphism suggests that institutional pressures lead to the diffusion of a dominant standard regime, our findings suggest that niche and mainstream standards constitute each other mutually through competitive processes of reciprocal positioning. This creates a ‘standards market’, where competing actants position and legitimise themselves in distinction to each other via the criterion of sustainability.

 






Open to all.  No registration required

 

For more information about the programme and group, please visit the link on the right hand side of this page.

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