The growing availability and consumption of Fairtrade products is recognised as one of the most widespread ethically inspired market developments, and as an example of activist-driven change within the wider marketing system. The Fairtrade Towns movement, now operating in over 1700 towns and cities globally, represents a comparatively recent extension of Fairtrade marketing driven by local activists seeking to promote positive change in production and consumption systems. This paper briefly explores the conventional framing of the role that ethically related activism (...) plays in the operation of markets and in influencing market participants. It then presents key insights gathered from a grounded theory exploration of Fairtrade Towns as activist-driven marketing systems, revealing the atypical nature of the activism involved. The findings demonstrate how local activists leverage their social networks to exert pressure and generate support to promote ethical consumption. The study suggests that Fairtrade Towns offer a new role for activists as Fairtrade itself becomes more mainstream, and considers the role they are fulfilling as ‘informal’ local marketers. The marketing dynamics revealed represent a complex and distinctive form of relational activism that seeks to build Fairtrade markets and highlight their positive benefits, with potential lessons for other local ethical market-building efforts in future. (shrink)

There is much more written about how and why business schools could and should talk about business ethics than about how they could “walk the talk.” When ethics is discussed, it is usually in relation to the position of business ethics within the curriculum, rather than about what does and does not constitute ethical behaviour on the part of a business school and its members. This paper seeks to explore how ethics can develop beyond the curriculum, and some methods by (...) which business schools might promote effective ethical self-development. Four basic ethical concepts are used as potential starting points for business school faculty to engage with business ethics beyond the curriculum: moral conflict, role morality, moral codes, and moral climate. Through a discussion of these, eight theses are developed for further discussion and are suggested as a framework for future comparative research about business school ethics. (shrink)