FTIS 2008 (Congreso internacional sobre el Comercio Justo)

Emerging “Standard Complex” and Corporate Social Responsibility of Agro-food Businesses: A case study of Dole Food Company

SEKINE K., Univ. de Kyoto, Kyoto, Japon, BOUTONNET J-P., INRA, UMR Innovation, Montpellier, France et HISANO S., Univ. de Kyoto, Kyoto, Japon

Abstract

Recently as a reaction to the social movement of fair trade and the like, multinational agro-food businesses are getting remodelled to suit a growing public awareness of the extent of “corporate social responsibility”, which is now adopted as a new strategy by major corporations across sectors.
Dole Food Company is one of these agro-food businesses who take advantage of this strategy to communicate their socially responsible activities (fair trade and organic banana production, etc). Today it is not difficult to find examples of multinational companies’ involvement into alternative markets. The launch of fair trade products by such big multinationals raises questions about the nature of fair trade as an alternative movement against globalisation and industrialisation of the agro-good system.
Our purpose of this paper is to depict the circumstances of multinational agro-food businesses’ activities on CSR, including faire trade, and to examine the challenges they are facing and producing, with a case study of Dole Food Company. First, we will illustrate the present complexity of quality standards by referring to the concept of “Standards Complex”, which we coined to understand the ongoing phenomenon in the global agro-food system. Second, three case studies in developing countries (based on literature surveys) and Japan (based on our field surveys) will be given to illuminate the multinational companies’ behaviour on the aspects of the environment, human rights and locality. Finally, we will examine the challenges of the “Standards Complex” in the context of “Green Capitalism” and discuss the need for more public regulations of business in order to reinforce fair competition while recalling the role of states as a builder of agro-food standards.

L’émergence d’un système de norme et la responsabilité sociale des entreprises de l’industrie agro-alimentaire: Etude de cas de l’entreprise Dole Food

Résumé

Recemment, comme une reaction de mouvement social du commerce equitable et les memes, des entreprises agro-alimentaires multinationales sont en train de les remodeler pour les conformer a la connaissance publique d’elargissement de la responsabilite sociale de l’entreprise qui sont adopte comme une nouvelle strategie par des grandes entreprises. Dole est une de ces entreprises qui exploitent ce strategie pour communiquer ses activites responsibles socialement (commerce equitable et banane bio etc.). La mise en vente de produits du commerce equitable par telles multinationales met la nature du commerce equitable comme un mouvement alternatif contre la mondialisation et industrialisation agro-alimentaire en question. L’objet de notre communication est ce qu’on represente les circonstances de l’activite de la RSE des multinationales et qu’on examine les challenges avec une etude de cas de Dole. D’abord, on illustrera la complexite d’aujourd’hui de la norme de qualite avec notre concept « Systeme du Norme». Ensuite trois etudes de cas de Dole illuminera son comportement actuel envers l’environnement, les droits de l’homme et la localite. A la fin, on examinera les challenges du «Systeme de Norme » dans la contexte du « capitalisme vert » et on discutera la necessite de la regulation publique pour la concurrence equitable en se rappelant le role d’Etat comme un constructeur de la norme agro-alimentaire.