Benjamin Huybrechts - Fair Trade Organizations and Social Enterprise: Social Innovation through Hybrid Organization Models

This work would never have been achieved without the help of a large number of people whom I would like to thank. Here is a nonexhaustive list:

My PhD jury:

Jacques Defourny, for his confidence, frequent advice, inspiration, and motivation to pursue this journey until the end and even beyond.

Franois Pichault, for helping me to structure my work and to consolidate its foundations by guiding me into the labyrinths of organization theory.

Alex Nicholls and the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship team at the University of Oxford, for welcoming me in Oxford and sharing their knowledge of and enthusiasm about social entrepreneurship.

Leonardo Becchetti, for his involvement in the Italian part of this study, his warm welcome in Rome, and our exciting writing collaboration.

Corinne Gendron, for helping me to better understand and analyze the Fair Trade movement.

The members of the Centre for Social Economy at HEC Management School of the University of Liege:

Julie Rijpens, for having joined me along the road, thereby making it much more pleasant and less lonely.

Sybille Mertens and Rocio Nogales, for their frequent advice, constant confidence, and numerous doses of motivation, especially during the most difficult stages of the journey.

Sophie Adam, Catherine Davister, Anne Dujardin, Hyung-Sik Eum, Julie Failon, Nadine Gentile, Caroline Lovens, Michel Mare, Hugues Mouchamps, Charlotte Moreau, Chantal Nicks, Franoise Navez, Nathalie Vrancken, and all the other past, present, and future colleagues that make the CES [KES] such a wonderful place to work.

Other academics:

Marthe Nyssens, for her useful advice for studying social enterprises.

Bob Doherty, Mark Hayes, Geoff Moore, and Darryl Reed, for helping me to better understand Fair Trade organizations both from an academic and a practitioner perspective.

All the young academics working on Fair Trade and involved in the Fairness network, for the advice and the mutual motivation; I particularly thank Amanda Berlan, Iain Davies, Virginie Diaz-Pedregal, Aurlie Carimentrand, Matthieu Gateau, Ronan Le Velly, Jean-Frdric Lemay, Nil Ozcaglar-Toulouse, and Alastair Smith.

The co-organizers of the FTIS 2008 and 2012 conferences.

The academics of the EMES European Research network and the members of the EMES PhD student network.

All the Fair Trade practitioners (entrepreneurs, supporters, network coordinators, etc.) I met during the study, and in particular:

In Belgium: Eric Dewaele (BFTF), Benot Olivier, and Maurice Lambert (MMH-MFT), Samuel Poos (Trade for Development Centre), Sophie Tack, Franois Graas, and Jrme Chaplier (Oxfam-MDM), and Jol Van Cauter (Citizen Dream)

In France: Guihem Papelard (Equisol) and Emilie Sarrazin-Biteye (PFCE)

In the UK: Paul Chandler (Traidcraft) and Geoff Moore (Gateway and Traidcraft)

In Italy: Hassan Bajaj, Laura Saponaro (Esprit Equo), and Gaga Pignatelli (Pangea-Niente Troppo and Agices)

Sophie Adam and Christina De Schepper, for their precious help in reviewing and editing the text.

My friends and family, particularly Claire-Anne, No, and Lucie, who have never ceased to encourage me, and without whom this journey would be absolutely meaningless.

Among the recent initiatives that promote more ethical and sustainable production and consumption modes, Fair Trade (FT) is probably one of the fastest growing and most promising. Although the sales of FT products still represent a marginal proportion of the total trade in the world, and symbolic content make them much more than an anecdotic phenomenon (Krier 2005; Nicholls and Opal 2005). FT, of course, is not just about trading figures. Indeed, the idea of FT is to use trade as a means to achieve the social mission of supporting small-scale producers in the South. And, beyond such support to producers, FT also aims to educate citizens and lobby governments and corporations to make international trading rules and practices fairer. From a conceptual standpoint, FT can be seen as a hybrid concept entailing at least three dimensions: an economic, a social, and a political one. In various aspects, FT appears as a social innovation (Phills, Deiglmeier, and Miller 2008; Mulgan et al. 2007; Martin and Osberg 2007): through the reactualized ambition of using the market to pursue social and political aims; through the range of concrete devices (re)invented to achieve this goal; and through the organizational models experienced by Fair Trade Social Enterprises (FTSEs) to implement these devices.

For several decades, FTSEsbroadly defined as organizations specialized in FThave been involved in the import and distribution of FT products. While developing their own commercial capacities, FTSEs have been instrumental in the development of standards for FT. These standards led to the emergence of FT certification. The main certification model, the Fairtrade. The emergence of the FT label has had a deep influence on the whole FT movement, including FTSEs, whether using the label or not. Hence, there has been an increasing diversification of the organizational landscape, not only through the coexistence of FTSEs and corporations, but also among the FTSEs. This book focuses on the latter diversification process and on its influence on the practice of FT as a hybrid concept.