The Challenge of being a fair trade soci(et)al entrepreneur

This paper is based on a study of how the CEO of a Fair Trade textile company in Sweden handles and develops her Fair Trade business and which challenges and dilemmas she meets in her interplay with suppliers, customers, and NGOs in different contexts such as Sweden and India. The combination of having a vision of changing poor working conditions in India and also make a living on her business raises some dilemmas for the soci(et)al entrepreneur. Some dilemmas regard her own life situation, business matters and others her possibility to make change for Indian workers. The dilemmas show that also in relation to a non-profit context and the business/market context the actors in Sweden and India and their actions are dependent on which values and norms they are familiar with and driven by. This results in a Fair Trade paradox and the Swedish soci(et)al entrepreneur is in the Indian context forced to make business in the profit maximizing logic, a logic that she tries to change with the help of the Fair Trade idea.