Sustaining Inter-organizational Relationships Across Institutional Logics and Power Asymmetries: The Case of Fair Trade

This paper explores an empirical puzzle, namely, how inter-organizational relationships can be sustained between organizations that draw upon distinctive-and potentially conflicting-institutional logics under conditions of power asymmetry. This research analyses cases of these relationships and suggests some key conditions underlying them. Examining relationships between 'Fair Trade' organizations and corporate retailers, a series of contingent factors behind the dynamic persistence of such relationships are proposed, namely: the presence of pre-existing 'hybrid logics'; the use of boundary-spanning discourses; joint tolerance of conflict; and co-creation of common rules. These four elements are supported by a fifth mediating factor, i.e. the presence and use of a Fair Trade certification system in the collaboration. The latter appears as a central vehicle facilitating cross-logic relationships-it can be seen as a 'boundary object' embodying a series of narratives and discourses that are open to multiple interpretations corresponding to the dominant institutional logics of each partner organization.