EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Traders as sustainability governance actors in global food supply chains: A research agenda

Janina Grabs and Sophia Louise Carodenuto

Business Strategy and the Environment, 2021, vol. 30, issue 2, 1314-1332

Abstract: Corporate actors are rapidly gaining ground as nontraditional forms of authority that shape sustainability governance efforts in global food supply chains. This paper highlights the critical, but underresearched role of traders—companies whose core business lies in the movement and exchange of agricultural commodities between producers and manufacturers—in linking corporate sustainability ambitions to on‐the‐ground impacts. Drawing on a systematic analysis of the major transnational corporations trading cocoa, coffee, and palm oil, we present advantages and potential pitfalls of relying on traders as implementers of sustainability governance and outline a future research agenda that focuses on producer‐level impacts, changes in supply chain organization and power dynamics, and traders' interactions with state and other nonstate actors. At the intersection of supply chain management, political economy, geography, and global governance, research on traders as key sustainability governance actors also provides novel opportunities for interdisciplinary work and stakeholder engagement.

Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.2686

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:bstrat:v:30:y:2021:i:2:p:1314-1332

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://onlinelibrary ... 1002/(ISSN)1099-0836

Access Statistics for this article

Business Strategy and the Environment is currently edited by Richard Welford

More articles in Business Strategy and the Environment from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:bla:bstrat:v:30:y:2021:i:2:p:1314-1332