Corinne Gendron

Business, Economy, and the Environmet Toward a New Development Paradigm

According to regulation theory, social actors are redefining economic institutional forms from which a newpostfordist development model could emerge. The fordist model, based on an industrialist development model and specific institutional forms regarding organization of production, the distribution of surplus value, and international integration, has been broken by the 1973 crisis and the globalization process. The new institutional forms are shaped by actors engaged in social conflicts who eventually compromise permitting a certain degree of order that allows social and economic action. The social representation of the representatives of the economic order will have a strong impact on the structure and content of that new compromise. Understanding the conceptual framework underlying business action is essential for anticipating the economic institutional forms presently emerging, especially those regarding environmental matters. Presented here are the results of research conducted among the top managers of Quebec businesses regarding their social representations on key topics of the economic order and the environment.

Key drivers of the food chain

Recent developments in agro-food production, trade, and consumption point to a potential end of the commoditization process of food. Commoditization has been described by agricultural economy historians as a process through which food increasingly became a tradable merchandise as other commercial products. Through the industrial revolution and the green revolution, food became “disembedded” from its social and local economic functions. Profound specificities of food, such as its role in social relations and ecosystem management, however, could never be totally absorbed by the process of commoditization, because of strategic issues entailed in the free trade agenda. This chapter looks at today’s key drivers of the food chain and finds significant evidence that a process of de-commoditization might be at work in the agro-food sector. The failure of agricultural trade liberalization, the rise of alternative distribution networks relying on values such as fairness, the reintroduction of organic and ecological agricultural methods, and the “turn to quality” in food consumption are all identified as key drivers of the de-commoditization of the food chain.

The Social and Political Construction of Sustainable Development in Quebec: A Critical Analysis of the Quebec Sustainable Development Policy

Although sustainable development is a vague notion and its implementation difficult (Gendron and Reveret 2000), it is increasingly becoming an object of policy-making. Among the factors making the definition and implementation challenges so prominent is the fact that sustainable development is socially constructed through conflict and power relations. Businessmen, environmental activists, politicians and simple citizens all have different understandings of the concept — understandings that are often grounded into private (and, sometimes, public) interests and that are shaped by normative discourses and social representations. Although it has occupied the public space for some time, social representations of sustainable development are still today an object of political conflict, and thus have considerable impacts on policy framing.

Social responsibility and international law: reflections about labour issues

La responsabilite societale et le droit international : reflexions sur les enjeux du droit du travailTandis que plusieurs analystes saluent le succes de la responsabilite sociale a travers le monde, d’autres s’inquietent qu’elle ne se substitue a des reglementations contraignantes, et par consequent en freine l’adoption. Selon cette perspective critique, la mondialisation et le neoliberalisme s’inscrivent dans un meme mouvement a travers lequel le pouvoir normatif des Etats a ete transfere a des acteurs prives, avec pour double consequence d’instituer les entreprises en veritables legislateurs et de consacrer le principe d’autoregulation. Cette perspective critique interprete les initiatives et les mecanismes de responsabilite sociale comme un mouvement de privatisation du droit, inherent a l’ideologie neoliberale qui sous-tend la mondialisation. Bien que seduisante, cette perspective est a l’oppose de la these presentee ici, selon laquelle le mouvement de la responsabilite sociale traduit une transformation de la juridicite qui le depasse, en s’inscrivant plus largement dans une evolution de la democratie qui resulte a la fois de la dynamique sociale et de la mondialisation. Cet article analyse les formes que prend la responsabilite sociale dans le domaine du travail afin de mettre en lumiere les limites des analyses critiques et de montrer les relations entre droit et democratie dans nos societes economiques mondialisees. En prenant appui sur l’experience d’ISO 26000, il montre que les initiatives de responsabilite sociale n’abolissent ni ne remplacent la reglementation contraignante. En se juxtaposant au droit international, elles contribuent plutot a son effectivite.