A Critical Review of Davenport & Low

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A Critical Review of Davenport & Low, 2013, From trust to compliance: accountability in the fair trade movement, Social Enterprise Journal, vol. 9, no. 1, pp 88-101. Davenport & Low (2013) conducted a study on the evolution of fair trade movement from trust-based relationships to standards-based systems. The research emphasized on the external and internal accountability approach adopted by Fair Trade Labelling Organization International (FLO) and World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO). External accountability used by FLO focuses respectively. on standard-based certification in which the reliability of the products depends on the label and ‘rituals’ of auditing’ while WFTO acquires internal accountability through organizational self-assessment which is based on democracy and trust between the producer and the consumer. The findings revealed that the popularization of labeling and certification used by FLO has turned the trust relationship to a market-based relationship. Jahn et al.(2005) stressed that it will create a substantial ‘brand risk’ to Fairtrade labeling if monitoring anywher...

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