Asian drivers and the future of responsible production and consumption: Exploring a Research Question and Hypotheses for Future Research

This paper raises two questions to take a first step in developing a research
agenda to assess the developmental relevance of responsible production, which
includes both Fair Trade and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives.
The first question is: How likely is it that responsible production becomes
increasingly mainstreamed? After defining responsible production and
contrasting the models and realities of Fair Trade and CSR, I present the rather
optimistic ‘business case’ for a ‘race to the top’ which would also imply a
further mainstreaming of responsible production. However, this optimism is
put in perspective with some sobering observations about how the rise of
China and India as centers of global production and consumption may well
limit the reach of responsible production.
The second question to begin assessing the developmental relevance of
responsible production is: To what extent can we expect the ‘tool’ of
responsible production to enhance developmental outcomes? Notwithstanding
the limited overall reach of responsible production, I will argue that it might be
feasible to develop ‘pockets’ of responsible production in which various
stakeholders have found ways to selectively work together in order to enhance
the localized depth of responsible production.
The paper concludes with formulating some hypotheses for further
research and putting forward the policy relevance of such research.