Abstract
This article unravels how fair trade organizations use social impact disclosures as forms of symbolic power amid stakeholder concerns that prevail in the fair trade field. Mobilizing Bourdieu’s notion of symbolic power and through narrative analysis of social impact disclosures and the associated rhetoric of major UK fair trade organizations, as well as their stakeholders’ rhetoric and persuasive arguments in the public domain during the period from 2006 to 2013, we show that these organizations position themselves as dominant actors in responding to stakeholders’ concerns over social inequality. We provide important insights into how social impact disclosures, silence and rhetorical strategies are used as a mechanism of symbolic power through which fair trade organizations maintain dominance over their stakeholders in the fair trade field.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 102182 |
| Number of pages | 20 |
| Journal | Critical Perspectives On Accounting |
| Volume | 79 |
| Early online date | 5 May 2020 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Sept 2021 |
Bibliographical note
We thank seminar participants at Newcastle University Business School and Durham University Business School in 2019. We also thank participants at European Accounting Association Conference, Milan, 2018Keywords
- Fair trade
- Bourdieu's notion of Symbolic power
- Rhetoric
- Social impact disclosures
- Social inequality
- rhetoric
- Legitimacy
- Accountability
- developing nations
- UK
- supply chain
- Critical accounting research
- Stakeholders
Access to Document
- Semeen_etal_CPA_Social_impact_AAM
© 2020. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/