Cultural Values in the Fair trade market : Examining producers’ organizations

Résumé En

Considered as systems of symbols or as a collective mental programming that gives identity to a group of individuals, culture is represented by the cultural values that constitute its central part. These values are considered as standards that guide individual’s functioning because their affective and behavioral dimensions participate in defining their goals. At the organizational level, an adaptation of individual values to the organizational ones is necessary to avoid conflicts. Moreover, this adaptation should allow for learning and knowledge management in order to contribute to a better performance of the organization. The objective of this paper is to understand how the application of cultural values can lead to the effectiveness of organizations, and more precisely, of producers’ organizations certified Fairtrade. Thus, through our case study based on producers’ organization, we seek to identify critical cultural values related to the Fairtrade label, as the latter is based on social, environmental and economic principles that all the actors of the organization should respect. The results of our study indicate that there is a link between the values of the Fairtrade label and the involvement of the producers in this market.