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This project explores tensions at the heart of the fair-trade organization Ten Thousand Villages. I investigate the ways in which this organization attempts to balance concerns of North American staff and volunteers, to care for artisans abroad, and to incorporate expansion plans in the face of challenges raised by the recession.

This chapter draws on fieldwork with stores in Toronto (2011–2012) and ongoing fieldwork (summer 2014 and 2015) with the flagship store in Ephrata, Pennsylvania.

Members express continuing tension between the organization’s founding Mennonite values and the more recent orientation chosen by leadership, to compete successfully in “regular” retail space against non-fair-trade brands. Store staff and volunteers perceive Villages’ buying practices, meant to provide “fairness” to producers in the developing world, as somewhat inconsistent with the treatment of North American store employees. Corporate leadership is mainly focused on ameliorating poverty abroad, rather than framing the organization’s work in a broader social justice context, which store staff and volunteers expect.

At a time of increasing dialogue about alternative value systems that expand notions of economic worth, the fair-trade movement offers a useful model for one attempt to work within the market system to ameliorate its damages. Understanding how one organization negotiates its own competing value systems can provide useful perspective on other revaluation projects.

Strategic management of nonprofit organizations.

This case is appropriate for graduate level program/executive education courses; advanced topics in nonprofit management or strategic management of nonprofit organizations.

This case focuses on the central dilemma faced by arteBA Foundation in 2008. arteBA Foundation's chairman, Facundo Gómez Minujín, received an offer from a foreign company to purchase the art fair launched 17 years before – and by then acknowledged as the most prestigious fair in Latin America. Leading art fairs around the world were managed by for-profit companies that could view arteBA as a strategic asset to tap into new markets. Gómez Minujín called for an urgent board meeting. The young chairman had his qualms about selling the fair. In addition to corroborating arteBA's brand positioning in the region and rewarding the organization's efforts over the years, this purchasing offer afforded the possibility to undertake several projects to further develop and promote Argentine art – the true driver for most arteBA's members. The case describes the foundation's background and the fair's growth until the crossroads in November 2008. They include several accounts of instances in which the foundation took financial risks to enhance the fair's positioning, such as granting subsidized space to emerging galleries at its Young Neighborhood Program, expanding to include aesthetically risky offerings at its Open Space section, and financially supporting Brazilian galleries to attend the fair in order to enhance its Latin American scope and regional consolidation. Similarly, the case depicts how the foundation chose to uphold fair continuity in critical years (2001) amidst a dismal domestic setting. The dilemma presented by this case hinges on an organization's ability to build a market-based venture while preserving and pursuing its mission. To promote Argentine artists and art, arteBA Foundation had to help art galleries – for-profit businesses – to adopt more professional practices. Another challenge described in this case revolves around the need to “manage quality” in detriment of greater, immediate revenues. The last section revisits the central dilemma faced by arteBA Foundation. The mixed reactions of board members on the fair's purchase offer described in the introduction unfolded in a passionate debate at the board meeting. Two prevailing positions emerged in reference to the future of the organization. For some board members selling the fair afforded arteBA a chance to finally undertake new challenges, such as launching a grant program, offering financial support to artists, consolidating a new venture (South Limit), etc. Opposing board members contended that, without the fair, the foundation made no sense and that no other initiative could have such an impact on its field of choice. Finally, the board found it impossible to reach a decision on this matter in just one meeting and decided to resume its discussion after a recess.

This case has been designed to advance the following teaching objectives: gaining a better understanding of market-based ventures carried out by social organizations; discussing the alignment of market-based ventures to social missions at social organizations; adequately interpreting market trends to try to align them to a nonprofit's mission; identifying the primary capabilities needed by social organizations to manage profitable market-based ventures; developing a positive market orientation as a source of opportunities for a nonprofit; appreciating the significance of an active, committed board for market-based venture development; and highlighting the primary role of entrepreneurship and innovation when it comes to launching market-based ventures that add value to a nonprofit's brand.

Teaching notes are available.

The purpose of the article is to move beyond positivistic political economy analysis of fair trade, and to examine competitive dynamics between competing interpretations in terms of the very fair trade concept itself.

Grounded in an ideational ontology, the paper provides a theoretical framework concerned with the contestation of meaning. Analysis applies this framework through a heuristic reading of fair trade's history, drawing on secondary literature, documents and primary qualitative research; and the discursive construction of Fair for Life – a new programme seeking to negotiate the “constitutive rules” of fair trade.

The article identifies that the history of fair trade and its current competitive dynamics are constituted by a negotiation and contestation of the constitutive rules that set the parameters of the fair trade concept.

The paper complements political economy analysis of socially constructed governance such as fair trade, and adds value to academic analysis by exposing important, yet previously unconsidered, micro‐politics of language and practice. The description and initial analysis of “Fair for Life” opens a new area of empirical interest for scholars of fair trade and sustainability governance.

Analysis highlighting the important implication of discourse and practice for the very definition of fair trade offers practitioners important insights into little considered implication of their practices and their representations in language.

The article complements political economy analysis by demonstrating the value of an ideationally grounded analysis of fair trade and similar socially constructed governance systems.

Purpose – The chapter is concerned with the practice of social accounting as enabling understanding and development of accountability relationships within a global values-based organisation operating with those in emerging and less developed countries.

Design/methodology/approach – The research takes a case-based approach to the experience of social accounting and reporting from 2005 to 2009 with Shared Interest Society, an international fair trade finance organisation.

Findings – The findings are better understandings of how accountability relationships within the case organisation are developed over time through social accounts. Shared Interest's social accounts suggest a way to move towards understandings of accountability that acknowledge organisational values and the needs and expectations of different stakeholder groupings.

Research limitations/implications – The research examines a single organisation with a particular focus on their social accounts. Nevertheless, this offers considerable insight into how accountability is developed within a single organisational setting.

Social implications – Through social accounting, awareness of issues concerning fair trade can be raised at an organisational, local and national level. The case organisation is underpinned by the fundamental value of working for the common good to benefit humanity and/or the planet rather than working for individual gain using financial assets held for the benefit of society, in this case through the financing of international fair trade within developing nations where fair trade is seen as part of a solution to bring benefit to the world's poorest people.

Originality/value – The research responds to a lack of empirical studies within social accounting addressing fieldwork exploration in ‘values-based’ organisations and specifically co-operative-based organisations where social accounts are used to communicate with stakeholders, in this case at the level of fair trade producers.

This paper critically examines the marketing of fair trade, arguing that the use of the term producer conflates a number of categories of actors, not all of whom benefit equally. The authors contend that the two existing archetypes – the noble peasant farmer and the independent artisan – and the emerging archetype of the “empowered decision maker” serve to obscure and mask complex labour relationships.

This conceptual paper draws on a wide range of literature and original fieldwork conducted by the authors to illustrate the three marketing archetypes in the fair trade value chain.

Hidden behind the three dominant archetypes used to promote fair trade is a relationship between fair trade “producers” (small farmer, craft enterprise and plantations) and permanent and temporary/casual labourers. The trickle‐down of fair trade benefits to these workers is uneven at best and falls far short of the expectation of empowerment of all “producers” that fair trade promises.

The fair trade project must look beyond the simple archetypes to engage more deeply with labour issues in the fair trade value chain, and to re‐engage with fair trade as a development strategy through which broader and more complex forms of empowerment can be realised.

Fair trade standards are not a substitute for organised labour's activities. Interactions between trade unions and fair trade bodies could ensure that existing labour standards are met, and improvements in the lives of all workers can occur.

This paper conceptualises three fair trade mainstream marketing archetypes and suggests why and how the fair trade movement must move beyond these to ensure empowerment amongst its least well‐off stakeholders.

The purpose of this study is to develop and test a theoretical model of Fairtrade buying behavior that supports Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by addressing the nexus between just-world beliefs, along with the normative influences, self-identity and altruistic values.

A conceptual framework on the influence of just-world beliefs for Fairtrade purchase intentions is proposed to analyze the role of just-world beliefs on the effects of normative influences and altruistic values for the intention to purchase Fairtrade products that support SDGs. These conceptualizations are empirically tested on a representative sample of 217 consumers.

Just-world beliefs play a central role in the purchase intention by having a direct effect on purchase intention and an indirect effect mediated by personal norms and self-identity. They partially mediate the effects of altruistic values and social norms on the purchase intention of Fairtrade products that support SDGs.

The research provides a better understanding of the influences of these contextual variables on ethical consumption and contributes to both the theory and practice of how businesses can achieve SDGs. The psychological rationale of just-world beliefs provides a new approach to marketing strategy and communication aimed at increasing purchase intention of Fairtrade products that support the fundamental goals of the UN sustainable development.

The purpose of this research paper was the study of an affluent Islamic market, going through a rapid economic and social transformation, from an ethical consumption perspective. More specifically, impact of environmentalism, consumption ethics, fair trade attitude and materialism was investigated on the ethical consumption behaviour of Muslim consumers.

A research framework was put together after consulting relevant literature, Islamic scholars and Islamic marketers. The developed research framework was tested in the Islamic State of Qatar. As an outcome of an online questionnaire-based survey targeting Muslim (Qatari) consumers in a public university, 243 usable questionnaires were collected. After reliability and validity checks, AMOS SPSS 20 was used to conduct structural equation modelling analysis on the collected data.

The results showed consumption ethics, environmentalism and fair trade attitude as significant determinants of ethical consumption behaviour. There was an insignificant association between materialism and ethical consumption behaviour. The findings suggested that most Muslim consumers within this affluent market showed an interest in ethical consumption. However, an insignificant association between materialism and ethical consumption behaviour implied that even though Muslim consumers demonstrated ethical consumption behaviour, they were not anti-materialism. The outcome suggests that due to the high levels of affluence among Muslim consumers, it is possible that they may be practising ethical and materialistic consumption simultaneously.

This research should assist marketers in understanding the ethical consumption behaviour of Muslim consumers who are faced with ethical and materialistic consumption options within an affluent Islamic market.

The research should add to the body of consumer behaviour knowledge, as it provides an insight into the consumption behaviour of Muslims who are facing social and religious ideology conflicts which makes their ethical consumption behaviours more sophisticated.

Companies may spend capital and effort to ensure the survival within their niche but have limited capacity to expand into other niches or broaden their target segment. This paper aims to provide insights into how they can overcome this niche entrapment – companies becoming trapped in the very niche they have cultivated, the weight and inertia of their investment shackling them to its continued existence.

Cedar Fair’s acquisitions and its organizational structure are carefully examined to illustrate the need for considering niche entrapment as a concept. To understand the complexities that firms face in their attempts to overcome the niche entrapment, this paper analyzes Cedar Fair using the concepts of categories and inherited identities.

The following important lessons are elaborated for helping business organizations overcome niche entrapment: embrace the organizational complexity; use gateway and complementary identities; consider brand disassociation; and achieve ambidexterity through a portfolio of offering.

This paper deviates from the traditional treatment of niches as a focus strategy that firms can select to build competitive advantages but instead provides insights into how those very niches can become constraints. It also conceptually evaluates the attempts to overcome these constraints from an organizational perspective instead of an industry perspective. Apart from using categories in a novel way, it also introduces a new concept of inherited identities, which are the organizational identities that firms inherit as they acquire and assimilate other firms.

The purpose of this study is to analyze Chinese tourists' perceptions toward the 2010 World Expo and the impact of a mega event on the host city and visitor satisfaction.

Guided by the conceptualization of hosting special events for destination branding, this study examines empirically tourists' perceptions and experiences of the 2010 Shanghai World Expo and the host city. Ten hypotheses were tested using SEM to identify and analyze the factors and relationships that influence mega events and host cities.

Data collected from 600 tourists who visited the 2010 Shanghai World Expo provide support for the proposed model. The empirical test provides support for eight of the ten hypotheses and it reveals that the hosting of the World Expo had significant positive impact on Shanghai but not vice versa, and the Chinese tourists exhibited loyalty to the host city.

Using a moving event such as Expo, the Shanghai brand is simplified. The sample includes only domestic tourists and future research should include an international sample for comparison.

The results help in identifying and managing the factors that contribute positively to the host destination brand when hosting mega events.

This study is the first attempt to empirically test the conceptual framework of leveraging a mega event for enhancing the host destination brand by using the 2010 Shanghai Expo as a case study. It validates that the strategic fit between the event and host city, community support and event quality are essential in enhancing host destination brand and tourist loyalty.