Abstract
By drawing attention to the notion of trade-based development, Fair Trade has contributed to the awareness of how market transactions can intersect with social issues. Fair Trade serves as an innovative supply chain that engages the world’s ‘poor’ in the trading system and it can be thought of as a development project that has evolved from a social movement to a social enterprise. The commercialization of activist efforts, however, faces the same pressures as the commercialization of any product and despite Fair Trade being founded for a purpose rather than a profit, this sector is embedded within market-based systems and being reconfigured according to market forces. As such, the four eras of Fair Trade are useful for assessing the growth and evolution of this sector, while the application of the product life cycle theory aids in the formulation of a conceptual framework to further the understanding of Fair Trade and illuminate concerns regarding certification systems.
Recommended Citation
Josephson, Kimberlee
(2022)
"IMPLICATIONS FOR THE MAINSTREAMING OF FAIR TRADE: APPLYING THE ERAS OF FAIR TRADE TO THE PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE THEORY,"
Pennsylvania Economic Review: Vol. 29:
No.
1, Article 4.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.65193/3067-8080.1039