Growing supermarket dominance and the expansion of own-label market share in Australia has put considerable pressure on agri-food manufacturers, and the recent movement of a number of manufacturing operations off-shore has attracted widespread attention. This paper examines the pursuit of an international manufacturing base by SPC Ardmona, one of Australia’s major fruit and vegetable processors, with a focus on strategic alliances formed with Siam Foods in Thailand and Rhodes Food Group in South Africa/Swaziland. Strategic horizontal alliances have become increasingly important (...) for manufacturers seeking to counter retailer dominance, yet have received little attention in the agri-food literature. The two alliances examined in this paper illustrate the profound importance of prevailing societal and institutional environments in which production networks ‘touch-down’, and their influence on firm-level dynamics of trust, motivation, corporate values, and strategic objectives. Horizontal alliances can offer a promising alternative to cut-throat competition and a ‘race- to-the-bottom’ between agri-food manufacturers. However, with own-label sourcing strategies deepening competition between geographically-disparate manufacturers, identifying compatible alliance partners is likely to become an increasingly greater challenge. (shrink)

Reproductive genetic technologies allow parents to decide whether their future children will have or lack certain genetic predispositions. A popular model that has been proposed for regulating access to RGTs is the ‘genetic supermarket’. In the genetic supermarket, parents are free to make decisions about which genes to select for their children with little state interference. One possible consequence of the genetic supermarket is that collective action problems will arise: if rational individuals use the genetic supermarket in isolation from one (...) another, this may have a negative effect on society as a whole, including future generations. In this article we argue that RGTs targeting height, innate immunity, and certain cognitive traits could lead to collective action problems. We then discuss whether this risk could in principle justify state intervention in the genetic supermarket. We argue that there is a plausible prima facie case for the view that such state intervention would be justified and respond to a number of arguments that might be adduced against that view. (shrink)

Recent scholarship has considered the implications of the rise of voluntary private standards in food and the role of private actors in a rapidly evolving, de-facto ‘mandatory’ sphere of governance. Standards are an important element of this globalising private sphere, but are an element that has been relatively peripheral in analyses of power in agri-food systems. Sociological thought has countered orthodox views of standards as simple tools of measurement, instead understanding their function as a governance mechanism that transforms many things, (...) and people, during processes of standardisation. In a case study of the Australian retail supermarket duopoly and the proprietary standards required for market access this paper foregrounds retailers as standard owners and their role in third-party auditing and certification. Interview data from primary research into Australia’s food standards captures the multifaceted role supermarkets play as standard-owners, who are found to impinge on the independence of third-party certification while enforcing rigorous audit practices. We show how standard owners, in attempting to standardize the audit process, generate tensions within certification practices in a unique example of ritualism around audit. In examining standards to understand power in contemporary food governance, it is shown that retailers are drawn beyond standard-setting into certification and enforcement, that is characterized by a web of institutions and actors whose power to influence outcomes is uneven. (shrink)

In a previous paper (Moore, 2001), the headline findings from a study of social and financial performance over three years of eight firms in the UK supermarket industry were reported. These were based on the derivation of a 16‐measure social performance index and a 4‐measure financial performance index. This paper discusses the formulationof the indices and then reports on: discussions with two supermarket firms concerning the overall results; inter‐relationships between individual financial performance measures; inter‐relationships between individual social performance measures; stakeholder (...) group analysis; and inter‐relationships between turnover, age and gearing with social performance measures. The paper discusses these inter‐relationships, incorporating comments from the interviews with the two supermarket firms, and reports on both factor and cluster analysis. The interviews lend support for Preston and O’Bannon’s (1997) Available Funding Hypothesis in both its positive and negative form. The findings show that there are individual or combinations of related measures that could be used as surrogate measures for social and financial performance, instead of deriving a full index. However, the recommendation is that a full index continues to be used until there is further corroboration of these results. The findings also provide statistically significant support for the Negative Synergy Hypothesis (Preston and O’Bannon, 1997), show a statistically significant association between pre‐tax profits (both lagged and contemporaneous) with community contributions, and show that all statistically significant associations between individual social performance measures are positive – suggesting that they are mutually reinforcing. The association of size with social performance, noted in the previous paper, is also reinforced. Findings in relation to the proportion of women managers and the number of women on the Board and positive associations with other social and environmental performance measures raise interesting gender issues for business ethics. Factor analysis leads to no clear conclusions but cluster does show two or three clear clusters of firms, where size would seem to be the main but not sole factor. Further areas of research are noted. (shrink)

In a previous paper (Moore, 2001), the headline findings from a study of social and financial performance over three years of eight firms in the UK supermarket industry were reported. These were based on the derivation of a 16‐measure social performance index and a 4‐measure financial performance index. This paper discusses the formulationof the indices and then reports on: discussions with two supermarket firms concerning the overall results; inter‐relationships between individual financial performance measures; inter‐relationships between individual social performance measures; stakeholder (...) group analysis; and inter‐relationships between turnover, age and gearing with social performance measures. The paper discusses these inter‐relationships, incorporating comments from the interviews with the two supermarket firms, and reports on both factor and cluster analysis. The interviews lend support for Preston and O’Bannon’s (1997) Available Funding Hypothesis in both its positive and negative form. The findings show that there are individual or combinations of related measures that could be used as surrogate measures for social and financial performance, instead of deriving a full index. However, the recommendation is that a full index continues to be used until there is further corroboration of these results. The findings also provide statistically significant support for the Negative Synergy Hypothesis (Preston and O’Bannon, 1997), show a statistically significant association between pre‐tax profits (both lagged and contemporaneous) with community contributions, and show that all statistically significant associations between individual social performance measures are positive – suggesting that they are mutually reinforcing. The association of size with social performance, noted in the previous paper, is also reinforced. Findings in relation to the proportion of women managers and the number of women on the Board and positive associations with other social and environmental performance measures raise interesting gender issues for business ethics. Factor analysis leads to no clear conclusions but cluster does show two or three clear clusters of firms, where size would seem to be the main but not sole factor. Further areas of research are noted. (shrink)

From farmers’ markets to primetime television cooking shows, notions of ‘knowing where our food comes from’ and ‘reconnecting’ with the sources of our food are now central to a range of contemporary cultural movements and popular media texts. While these ideas have primarily been mobilized by those with activist commitments to ethical and sustainable food production, they are also increasingly appearing in the media and marketing strategies of large agribusiness and retailing corporations, including those of the major Australian supermarkets. (...) This paper explores some of the techniques currently used by major supermarkets to respond to criticisms about their food ethics, market control and relationship with producers. Using a case study of Australian supermarket Coles and its integration of its ‘Helping Australia Grow’ campaign into reality television cooking show, My Kitchen Rules, it will consider the textual practices of, and social media response to, Coles’ sponsorship and integrated advertising strategies of putting a ‘face’ to the farmers who produce the products found on supermarket shelves. By emphasizing to Coles customers that they, too, can ‘know where their food comes from’ and that their purchasing decisions support individual farmers and family farms rather than large conglomerates, these strategies help to locate Coles within a network of meanings that seek to both shift and contest negative perceptions of the supermarket chain’s corporate practices and food politics in ways that potentially complicate the activist discourses from which they draw. (shrink)

Illicit arms availability in neighbourhoods are always a threat to external and internal security. Due to the geopolitics of Afghanistan, superpowers and non-state actors were active in that region for decades .Consequently, the FATA area of Pakistan and Adam Khel in particular became an oasis for arms Producers and traders as well as terrorists and drug traffickers. America and the former Soviet Union poured Afghanistan with the latest weapons from 1979 to 1989. A major part of that stockpile came to (...) the grey market of Darra Adam khel . Same thing happened when America and Nato arrived in Afghanistan after 9/11. Pakistan army and ISI a major and decisive player in this illicit arms trade which poses a big security concern for Indian policy makers. (shrink)

Non-governmental organizations and governments are promoting cooperatives as key to linking smallholder farmers with modern markets to achieve inclusive development, yet the specifics of these supply relationships remain poorly understood. This article uses data from 51 interviews with supply chain stakeholders and a survey of 110 smallholder vegetable farmers in Nicaragua to investigate the impact of cooperative-supermarket supply chain relationships on cooperatives, and the role retailers and NGOs play in facilitating these relationships. The study found that in Nicaragua, cooperatives selling (...) to Walmart became unstable, in contrast with the performance of cooperatives selling to local supermarket chain La Colonia. The results show that cooperative performance is impacted by an interaction between differences in the types of farmers reached by the two supermarket chains, in the performance of the NGOs involved in each supply chain, and in the supermarkets’ business practices. The findings suggest that NGOs should pay more attention to buyer sourcing strategies and farmer needs when designing development interventions to link cooperatives of resource-poor farmers to markets, so as not to increase the vulnerability of smallholder farmers. (shrink)

Artistic function within the global society is not more to produce “beauty” instead to acting inside communication. At Baudelaire’s time beauty was the ephemeral and bizarre. Masterpiece, work of art now is rather an open device. At the beginning of the modern era, cinema creates a new kind of spectator as an absent-minded expert, as W. Benjamin said. The new technological condition produces itself a sort of technical aura (so is for radio, cinema, records etc.) But as K. Marx said (...) «production produce consume». So a new condition of aura in communication era lies in the ephemeral artist’s act. Art is now in the era of “gas”, to live the aura is just to breath an atmosphere as Y. Michaud says. Artistic function is to produce relations and public relations. Curators they work as cool hunters or disc jockey and museums are a new kind of mass media for an absent-minded public enjoying in the supermarket of aura. (shrink)

Artistic function within the global society is not more to produce “beauty” instead to acting inside communication. At Baudelaire’s time beauty was the ephemeral and bizarre. Masterpiece, work of art now is rather an open device. At the beginning of the modern era, cinema creates a new kind of spectator as an absent-minded expert, as W. Benjamin said. The new technological condition produces itself a sort of technical aura (so is for radio, cinema, records etc.) But as K. Marx said (...) «production produce consume». So a new condition of aura in communication era lies in the ephemeral artist’s act. Art is now in the era of “gas”, to live the aura is just to breath an atmosphere as Y. Michaud says. Artistic function is to produce relations and public relations. Curators they work as cool hunters or disc jockey and museums are a new kind of mass media for an absent-minded public enjoying in the supermarket of aura. (shrink)

Sales in supermarkets have contributed greatly to growth in Fairtrade, but the literature suggests there may be tensions between Fairtrade principles and the commercial practices which characterise UK supermarket value chains. This article explores these tensions through an analysis of supermarket value chains for Fairtrade coffee, cocoa, bananas and fresh fruit. It finds considerable variation in UK supermarket approaches in terms of scale and scope of commitment to Fairtrade and in the nature of relationships with Fairtrade suppliers. In some (...) cases supermarket involvement has the potential both to expand and deepen the impact of Fairtrade, whereas in others it threatens to undermine the ability of Fairtrade to support long-term processes of development. The findings indicate that a more nuanced approach to supermarket Fairtrade is required, with recommendations for actions that could be taken to maximise the opportunities and minimise the risks. (shrink)

Robert Nozick, in what is surely one of the most intriguing and provocative footnotes in modern philosophical writing, referred in Anarchy,StateandUtopia to the notion of a In keeping with the central arguments of that text, his suggestion was that choices about the genetic composition of future generations should, as far as possible, be left in the hands of private individuals, and should not be determined or restricted by the state. This free market in genetic screening would meet and would possess (...) In short, prospective parents would be allowed, to whatever extent was rendered possible by current technology, to choose the genetic traits of their future children. (shrink)

Dylan Trigg on anxiety, phobia, and phenomenology.

The comparison of corporate social performance with corporate financial performance has been a popular field of study over the past 25 years. The results, while broadly conclusive of a positive relationship, are not entirely consistent. In addition, most of the previous studies have concentrated on large-scale cross-industry studies and often with a single variable for corporate social performance, in order to produce statistically significant results. This weakens the richness of understanding that might be obtained from a single industry study with (...) multiple social variables, which would also allow investigation of inter-relationships between individual and sub-sets of social performance measures and between individual and sub-sets of social performance and financial performance measures. There have also been criticisms that the results lack a rigorous theoretical basis, and the paper demonstrates clearly how stakeholder theory must form the basis for this area of research. Following a review of the literature this paper presents the initial findings from a study of the U.K. Supermarket industry which suggest that contemporaneous social and financial performance are negatively related, while prior-period financial performance is positively related with subsequent social performance. Positive relationships between both age and size of the company with social performance are also found. (shrink)

With the proliferation of private standards many significant decisions regarding public health risks, food safety, and environmental impacts are increasingly taking place in the backstage of the global agro-food system. Using an analytical framework grounded in political economy, we explain the rise of private standards and specific actors – notably supermarkets – in the restructuring of agro-food networks. We argue that the global, political-economic, capitalist transformation – globalization – is a transition from a Fordist regime to a regime of (...) flexible accumulation (Harvey, 1989). We also argue that the standard making process of this new regulatory regime is increasingly moving from the front stage – where it is open to public debate and democratic decision-making bodies – to the backstage – where it is dominated by large supermarket procurement offices. We assert that transnational supermarket chains are increasingly controlling what food is grown where, how, and by whom. We also contend that the decision-making processes of transnational supermarket chains are typically “black-boxed.” The Euro-Retailer Produce Working Group (EUREP) is presented as a case of private governance by transnational supermarket chains. We conclude by examining the limitations and long-term efficacy of a system of private governance in the global agro-food system. (shrink)

This paper investigates what “free-range” eggs are available for sale in supermarkets in Australia, what “free-range” means on product labelling, and what alternative “free-range” offers to cage production. The paper concludes that most of the “free-range” eggs currently available in supermarkets do not address animal welfare, environmental sustainability, and public health concerns but, rather, seek to drive down consumer expectations of what these issues mean by balancing them against commercial interests. This suits both supermarkets and egg producers (...) because it does not challenge dominant industrial-scale egg production and the profits associated with it. A serious approach to free-range would confront these arrangements, and this means it may be impossible to truthfully label many of the “free-range” eggs currently available in the dominant supermarkets as free-range. (shrink)

The Internet of Things (IoT) is an emerging global infrastructure that employs wireless sensors to collect, store, and exchange data. Increasingly, applications for marketing and advertising have been articulated as a means to enhance the consumer shopping experience, in addition to improving efficiency. However, privacy advocates have challenged the mass aggregation of personally-identifiable information in databases and geotracking, the use of location-based services to identify one’s precise location over time. This paper employs the framework of contextual integrity related to privacy (...) developed by Nissenbaum (Privacy in context: technology, policy, and the integrity of social life. Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2010) as a tool to understand citizen response to implementation IoT-related technology in the supermarket. The purpose of the study was to identify and understand specific changes in information practices brought about by the IoT that may be perceived as privacy violations. Citizens were interviewed, read a scenario of near-term IoT implementation, and were asked to reflect on changes in the key actors involved, information attributes, and principles of transmission. Areas where new practices may occur with the IoT were then highlighted as potential problems (privacy violations). Issues identified included the mining of medical data, invasive targeted advertising, and loss of autonomy through marketing profiles or personal affect monitoring. While there were numerous aspects deemed desirable by the participants, some developments appeared to tip the balance between consumer benefit and corporate gain. This surveillance power creates an imbalance between the consumer and the corporation that may also impact individual autonomy. The ethical dimensions of this problem are discussed. (shrink)

The background to this paper is that in our world of massively increasing personal digital data any control over the data about me seems illusionary – informational privacy seems a lost cause. On the other hand, the production of this digital data seems a necessary component of our present life in the industrialized world. A framework for a resolution of this apparent dilemma is provided if by the distinction between (meaningless) data and (meaningful) information. I argue that computational data processing (...) is necessary for many present-day processes and not a breach of privacy, while collection and processing of private information is often not necessary and a breach of privacy. The problem and the sketch of its solution are illustrated in a case-study: supermarket customer cards. (shrink)

This research brings together insights from philosophy, political theory, and consumer research in conceptualizing and empirically examining the social dimension of negative and positive freedom in consumption. Drawing from ethnographic observations and interviews with Moroccan women regarding their shopping at the supermarket, the findings detail the roles of husbands, store employees, extended family members and friends as constrainer, protector, enabler, facilitator, indulger, and witness. The discussion explains a ‘domino effect’ in such innovative marketplaces, as these market and social actors together (...) enact positive and negative forms of freedom in consumption in ways that co-disrupt social traditions. Implications for business ethics emphasize the need for greater theoretical understanding and practical transparency and accountability regarding the shared, yet disparate responsibilities among businesses and consumers for the changes to social traditions that result in the joint enactment of women’s freedom in consumption. (shrink)

This case study takes place in the context of a small urban supermarket chain. It examines the extent to which such firms should work to lower food waste on sustainability and human rights grounds. The scenario examines structural inefficiencies along the supply chain from food production to consumption, asking students to consider what power supermarkets have to correct these inefficiencies, and what ethical responsibility this may create for them to do so. Government regulations written to encourage or require food (...) purveyors to gift their excess supply to the needy are discussed. (shrink)

This article explores how neutralisation can explain people's lack of commitment to buying Fair Trade products, even when they identify FT as an ethical concern. It examines the theoretical tenets of neutralisation theory and critically assesses its applicability to the purchase of FT products. Exploratory research provides illustrative examples of neutralisation techniques being used in the FT consumer context. A conceptual framework and research propositions delineate the role of neutralisation in explaining the attitude-behaviour discrepancies evident in relation to consumers' FT (...) purchase behaviour, providing direction for further research that will generate new knowledge of consumers' FT purchase behaviour and other aspects of ethical consumer behaviour. (shrink)

Employee theft is costly to any business, especially to big retail chain organizations. This research is to study the perception of retail employees on the impact of the individual and organizational factors contributing to workplace theft behavior in supermarkets in Malaysia and to study the mediating effect of intention to steal and the moderating effect of internal control systems. The results proved that individual and organizational factors do influence workplace theft behavior. It is also established that internal control systems (...) moderate the relationship between the intention to steal and workplace theft behavior. (shrink)

Self-regulation has become a mantra for both governments and private industry in the neoliberal era. Yet, problems remain in terms of supermarket accountability and control. Governments everywhere appear to be under increasing pressure to move beyond the self-regulatory model by enacting legislation which better monitors and polices supermarket-supplier relations. In most cases, the appointment of an oversight authority—known variously as an ombudsman, watchdog, or adjudicator—with the power to set standards and apply sanctions, and to whom suppliers can appeal in cases (...) of perceived abuse, has been advocated. This paper investigates the role of watchdogs and ombudsmen as potential governance mechanisms for overseeing supermarket-supplier relations and explores, in detail, escalating pressure for their appointment within the UK and Australia over the last 20 years. The pursuit of regulatory frameworks to monitor, and adjudicate on, problems arising out of changing power relationships along agri-food supply chains in these two countries has been met with strong resistance from supermarkets; however, after 20 years of debate, it appears that these governments may be on the path towards legislating for an independent body to handle disputes. This paper critically examines ‘self-regulation’ and concludes that watchdogs and ombudsmen are only a partial solution, at best, to the problems that are arising from the neoliberal settings which govern relations between food suppliers and food retailers. (shrink)

Despite growing interest in ethical consumer behaviour research, ambiguity remains regarding what motivates consumers to purchase ethical products. While researchers largely attribute the growth of ethical consumerism to an increase in ethical consumer concerns and motivations, widened distribution of ethical products, such as fairtrade, questions these assumptions. A model that integrates both individual and societal values into the theory of planned behaviour is presented and empirically tested to challenge the assumption that ethical consumption is driven by ethical considerations alone. Using (...) data sourced from fairtrade shoppers across the UK, structural equation modelling suggests that fairtrade purchase intention is driven by both societal and self-interest values. This dual value pathway helps address conceptual limitations inherent in the underlying assumptions of existing ethical purchasing behaviour models and helps advance understanding of consumers’ motivation to purchase ethical products. (shrink)

For the past decade, supermarket chains have been positioned as the pre-eminent actor in global and national food systems. Some agri-food scholars argue that their ever-expanding transnational supply chains have established an era of stable production-consumption relations (or Food Regime), while others point to the conflicts they are encountering with governments, social movements and ‘alternative’ consumers. However, remarkably little attention has been paid to their relationship with communities and to community system sustainability. Based on fieldwork conducted in the Goulburn Valley, (...) Australia, we argue that supermarket operations are contributing to community tensions through contestation over valued symbols and narratives about what desirable ‘progress’ looks like. We identified three interrelated points of tension being intensified by supermarket chains: whether progress is encapsulated by being an agricultural production or a modern consumption centre; whether progress should be based on a model of corporate capital or the local small business; and to what extent modern citizens can and should support community shopping instead of convenience shopping. For long-time residents, supermarkets are paradoxical actors appealing to, as well as, challenging the narrative of a community whose economic strength was based on the surrounding natural environment and local people’s endeavours. The concepts of solastalgia and structural nostalgia are relevant, with the former referring to the place-based distress experienced by residents whose local area is changing profoundly and the latter describing a process amplifying that distress. Through exploring the political paradoxes of community solastalgia, we raise new questions about supermarket authority within contemporary Food Regimes. (shrink)

In light of growing concerns about obesity, Winson (2004, Agriculture and Human Values 21(4): 299–312) calls for more research into the supermarket foodscape as a point of connection between consumers and food choice. In this study, we systematically examine the marketing of ready-to-eat breakfast cereals to children in Toronto, Ontario supermarkets. The supermarket cereal aisle is a relatively unstudied visual collage of competing brands, colors, spokes-characters, and incentives aimed at influencing consumer choice. We found that breakfast cereal products with (...) higher-than-average levels of sugar, refined grains, and trans-fats are more likely to feature child-oriented marketing in the form of spokes-characters, themed cereal shapes/colors, and child incentives on cereal boxes. These forms of visual communication are consistent with a “health exploitive” pattern of targeted marketing to children in the supermarket setting. Only one aspect of visual communication is consistent with a “health protective” pattern of marketing to children—cereals shelved within reach of children aged 4–8 had less sugar per serving and were less likely to contain trans-fats than less reachable products. We discuss the implications of our findings for the measurement and regulation of marketing to children in North American supermarkets. (shrink)

This article explores how neutralisation can explain people's lack of commitment to buying Fair Trade (FT) products, even when they identify FT as an ethical concern. It examines the theoretical tenets of neutralisation theory and critically assesses its applicability to the purchase of FT products. Exploratory research provides illustrative examples of neutralisation techniques being used in the FT consumer context. A conceptual framework and research propositions delineate the role of neutralisation in explaining the attitude-behaviour discrepancies evident in relation to consumers' (...) FT purchase behaviour, providing direction for further research that will generate new knowledge of consumers' FT purchase behaviour and other aspects of ethical consumer behaviour. (shrink)