Moral Struggles in and Around Markets

Balsiger, Philip; Schiller-Merkens, Simone

doi:10.1108/s0733-558x20190000063009

Cited by 12 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 74 publications

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“…The three approaches are hardly separable along clear lines, but overlap and are used in different combinations to explain the success of social movements (McAdam et al, 1996a). Since some years there has been a growing interest in combining insights from social movement research with organizational studies (Balsiger & Schiller-Merkens, 2019;Davis et al, 2005;King, 2007;Lounsbury, 1997;McCarthy, 1996;Rao, 1998;Rao et al, 2000). Both fields share a common interest in the organization of collective behavior, being it occupational conduct or protest participation of citizens.…”

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moralising Markets, Marketizing Morality. The Fair Trade Movement, Product Labeling and the Emergence of Ethical Consumerism in Europe

Koos

2021

Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing

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In this paper, I argue that the historical change in the organizational logic of the Fair Trade movement, embodied by Fair Trade labeling, has had an important effect on the emergence of ethical consumption in Europe. By establishing Fair Trade labels, the initial movement logic of political influence through education was supplemented and partly abandoned in favor of a market logic. Fair Trade movements in Western Europe differ in the way they organize and market fair traded goods. Drawing on organizational institutionalism and social movement theories of economic opportunity structures, it is elaborated how the emergence of a new organizational form and its underlying logic shape consumption patterns. Hypotheses are empirically tested using a quantitative multilevel design. Organizational data on national Fair Trade movements compiled from an organizational survey of the European Fair Trade Association are combined with individual-level survey data of the 1997 Eurobarometer for 12 European countries. Logistic hierarchical regression models reveal the crucial importance of the Fair Trade labels once diffused into consumer markets, controlling for organizational communication efforts as well as the number of distribution channels for individual Fair Trade consumption. Thus, adopting a market logic has been a powerful force in rendering Fair Trade successful.

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Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moralising Markets, Marketizing Morality. The Fair Trade Movement, Product Labeling and the Emergence of Ethical Consumerism in Europe

Koos

2021

Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing

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“…Markets have been seen both as moral (Hirschman, 1982) and amoral (Walzer, 1983; Sandel, 2012). From a sociological perspective, different and often competing moralities exist that are historically and socially contingent and are negotiated and contested among diverse actors from different arenas (Hitlin and Vaisey, 2013; Balsiger and Schiller-Merkens, 2019). Some have argued that yoga has facilitated the “Easternization of America,” whereas others contend that markets have facilitated the “Westernization of yoga” (Brown and Leledaki, 2010).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Patañjali to the “Gospel of Sweat”: Yoga’s Remarkable Transformation from a Sacred Movement into a Thriving Global Market

Munir

Ansari

Brown

2021

Administrative Science Quarterly

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Movements seeking to infuse markets with moral values often end up utilizing the market mechanism and support from mainstream actors to scale up, even if it comes at the cost of diluting their founding ethos. But this process can be particularly challenging for movements that are explicitly opposed to using a market mechanism as a means of scaling up. Our analysis of yoga between 1975 and 2016 reveals how a countercultural movement fundamentally opposed to a capitalist market economy but seeking to grow can paradoxically become syncretic with or infiltrated by concepts and beliefs that are core to the market system but incompatible with the movement’s original ethos. We show how, before such a movement can be commodified, it must be de-essentialized, a process that requires stripping away key aspects of its history, context, and religious commitments and transforming collective goals into individual ones. This process involves not only external entrepreneurs looking to mine the movement but also movement leaders seeking wider enrollment of resource-rich actors to scale the movement up. We show how codes borrowed from parallel movements and templates borrowed from markets can be instrumental in driving such a movement’s transformation. Through this extreme case of the yoga movement, we advance understandings of how movements can become syncretic with values and practices they fundamentally oppose.

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“…To obtain a better understanding of this typology, we develop our theoretical framework of the three distinction roles of morals in markets by Beckert – enabling market exchange, limiting market expansion and accompanying market transactions (Beckert, 2012). In enabling the role of morality, morality can prevent market failure since each actor shares the same value and allows market exchange to transpire (Balsiger and Schiller-Merkens, 2019, p. 5). Second, limiting the role of morality is shown in the form of blocked exchange.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The contested role of morality in markets is related to a work by Polanyi, arguing that all economies are embedded in society and social structures (Smelser and Swedberg, 2005). The majority of economic sociologists also agree that markets are morally embedded as an outcome of social interactions in markets (Balsiger and Schiller-Merkens, 2019). In this paper, we observe morals not only in terms of honest transactions (Ognedal, 2016) or what valued by the people as good or bad (McDonnell et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The moral embeddedness of labor market transactions in Indonesia: a study of Chinese migrant workers

Sitorus

Hardjosoekarto

Jahja

et al. 2023

IJSE

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PurposeMoral consideration is significantly important as social responsibility of economic actions. This article aims to analyze the moral embeddedness of labor market using the typology of moral behavior in market exchange by Beckert (2005).Design/methodology/approachThis study contributes to methodological novelty through a digital research design using Gephi and NVIVO software. Textual Network Analysis (TNA) is used to analyze the moral embeddedness of labor market transaction of Chinese migrant workers.FindingsOverall, the results show that the presence of Chinese migrant workers in Indonesia is a form of Trojan altruism and harmful to local labor market. This study also provides a theoretical debate that morals are always embedded in markets.Research limitations/implicationsThe data and focus of this study are the Indonesian side, particularly the local labor market. In addition, access to interviews with the Chinese government and companies is very challenging and cannot be done because they cannot carelessly provide information to journalists and researchers.Originality/valueIn contrast to previous studies on Chinese migrant workers that tend to use the economic perspective, this study applies the moral perspective that is more sociological and discusses social responsibility of market actions.Peer reviewThe peer-review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-11-2022-0737

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Moral Struggles in and Around Markets

Cited by 12 publications

References 74 publications

Moralising Markets, Marketizing Morality. The Fair Trade Movement, Product Labeling and the Emergence of Ethical Consumerism in Europe

Moralising Markets, Marketizing Morality. The Fair Trade Movement, Product Labeling and the Emergence of Ethical Consumerism in Europe

From Patañjali to the “Gospel of Sweat”: Yoga’s Remarkable Transformation from a Sacred Movement into a Thriving Global Market

The moral embeddedness of labor market transactions in Indonesia: a study of Chinese migrant workers

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