Modern food value chains (FVC) are comprised of complex sequences of resource-intensive operations, requiring workforce, financial and natural resources worldwide, which have strong social, economic, and environmental implications (FAO, 2017). Indeed, many food producing countries face serious human and labor rights problems (Higonnet, Bellantonio, & Hurowitz, 2017; Leiter & Harding, 2004), where the national economy is relatively weak and prices are volatile (Wessel & Quist-Wessel, 2015). In a scenario of increasing globalization, corporate social responsibility (CSR) can play a more significant role (Toussaint, Cabanelas, & Blanco-González, 2020).

While there is not an official definition (Eyasu & Endale, 2020; Morgan, Widmar, Wilcoxc, & Croney, 2018), the European Commission (2001) described CSR as “a concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and in their interaction with their stakeholders on a voluntary basis”. In 2011, the European Commission proposed a new definition where CSR is “the responsibility of enterprise for their impacts on society”. In the food industry, CSR has become increasingly important due to the interest of stakeholders in food production, and its impacts on the environment and society (Hartmann, 2011). In fact, many CSR studies have focused on environmental issues, such as environmental activism (Devinney, Auger, Eckhardt, & Birtchnell, 2006), the use of recycled materials and packaging (Auger, Devinney, & Louviere, 2007), impacts of food production (Lusk & Briggeman, 2009). In parallel, consumers are becoming more aware of the consequences of their purchasing decisions in terms of environmental and social sustainability (Grunert, 2011; Mohr & Webb, 2005; Simmons & Becker-Olsen, 2006). Faced with an information deficit, consumers value CSR as they feel better when they buy products from brands associated with socially responsible behaviors (Arvola et al., 2008; Brown & Dacin, 1997; Poortinga, Steg, & Vlek, 2004). This perspective is also reflected on consumers’ behavior literature when studying the relationship between consumers’ ethical behaviors and their willingness to pay (De Pelsmacker, Driesen, & Rayp, 2005), organic food products (Jitrawang & Krairit, 2019), food labels and urban consumers (Kaczorowska, Rejman, Halicka, Szczebylo, & Gorska-Warsewicz, 2019), among others.

However, a review of the current literature reveals a number of biases and deficits. First, the research on social issues within CSR are normally associated to safe food, food safety, environmental protection, and ensuring access to natural resources for future generations (Lamberti & Lettieri, 2009). Only a limited number of studies have focused on CSR regarding transparency and social responsibility in terms of social issues (Bhaduri & Ha-Brookshire, 2011; Kang & Hustvedt, 2014); particularly the analysis of core concepts of social responsibility along FVCs has not been subject of study (Toussaint et al., 2020).

Second, most studies analyzing CSR in the food sector are from a developed country perspective (Diddi & Niehm, 2017; Jitrawang & Krairit, 2019; Morgan et al., 2018), lacking the developing country perspective in order to be more inclusive in understanding the overall issue. This is a major point because FVCs are organized globally.

Third, the extent to which the social component of CSR influences consumers’ preferences is less understood, especially in the food and agriculture sector (Morgan et al., 2018). Despite concerns about human labor, social issues are becoming more relevant for consumers in developed countries; there is more awareness of the well-being and care of livestock animals in food production (Croney & Botheras, 2010). It becomes contradictory with Auger et al. (2007) findings, which suggest that social and ethical issues – i.e. labor and human rights- are consistently chosen as more important than other issues, regardless of the nationality.

This paper is based on different theories, particularly the Institutional, Legitimacy and Stakeholder theories (Mani & Gunasekaran, 2018; Toussaint et al., 2020). These theories help to understand why companies decide to adopt social sustainability criteria adopted by societies (Mani, Gunasekaran, & Delgado, 2018). It favors social conformity (Deegan, 2001). Social practices are a response to an exogenous pressure that sometimes is not internalized in the company. However, it has facilitated the appearance of greenwashing or window dressing activities by firms (De Jong, Harkink, & Barth, 2018). Greenwashing means that a company is making a false impression or providing misleading about environmental issues. In so doing, a company can appear to act responsibly while behaving without responsibility (Aji & Sutikno, 2015). If customers are aware of social issues, it can have its subsequent effects on brand equity and in the purchase intentions (Akturan, 2018).

A way to mitigate this weakness is resorting to the application of stakeholder theory, an approach not often applied in institutionalism (Gimenez & Tachizawa, 2012), and that provides an interesting control on CSR related activities. In this case, social issues, taking this approach means integrating multiple perspectives which can complicate analysis, but undoubtedly it enriches it. Again, such an analysis deepens understanding of the process as it incorporates intangible activities related to competitive strategies but can foster learning and the development of capabilities for the company and the whole value chain (Cabanelas-Lorenzo, Cabanelas-Omil, & González-Vázquez, 2008; Cabanelas, Omil, & Vázquez, 2013).

Through a dialog with policy makers and corporate strategists, this study aims at exploring the consumers’ behavior when purchasing food products, and the influence over such decisions of companies’ social practices within their CSR. It becomes an important issue from a theoretical perspective in terms of ethics and decision-making processes, due to the complexity of possible relationships between variables not yet identified or studied, making it challenging for other behavioral studies (Malhotra & Miller, 1998). This study applies exploratory and qualitative methods to its analysis based on the Grounded Theory (GT) analysis (Johnson, 2015). The study combines desk research with input from a panel of 19 high level decision-makers who are involved on sustainable development, CSR, and the food value chains. Given that the stakeholder perspective is often lacking in the existing literature, this paper can provide the basis for further studies targeting consumers.

As a first step it is relevant to collect and analyze information from decision-makers because their position and their experience allow them to understand consumer trends from an aggregated and global rather than an individual perspective. Also, the information extracted from interviews offers a global conception about consumers’ behavior in terms of preferences and attitudes. Results from these interviews can then be incorporated into future research to include the individual approach as a final consumer. Results aspire to reduce the gap regarding CSR in FVCs from a consumers’ purchasing decision (CPD), making the concept more inclusive in terms of social aspects.

This paper is structured as follows. The second section reviews the literature, including relevant concepts on this topic. The third details the methodology providing an explanation of the research approach. Later, the findings are described, including a discussion about the results obtained. Finally, the study finishes with conclusions integrating the main theoretical and practical implications, and the limitations and future directions of research.

The research follows an explanatory and qualitative approach to understand and analyze the role of CSR in FVCs and its relationship with final consumers. This study uses the Grounded Theory (GT), a common method applied for empirical analysis in social sciences (Cabanelas, Manfredi, González-Sánchez, & Lampón, 2020; Johnson, 2015). This approach allows the generation of new theories or conceptual propositions from data (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss, 1987) by offering a logically-consistent set of data collection and analysis procedures aimed to develop theory (Charmaz, 2001: 245). Following the three basic elements of GT: concepts, categories, and propositions (Corbin & Strauss, 1990). According to Corbin and Strauss (1990, p. 7), the first element “concepts” refers to the basic units of analysis that comes from the data conceptualization, but it is not the actual data per se. The second, “categories” is more abstract than the “concepts” and becomes the cornerstone of theory development as it provides the meaning whereby theory can be integrated. Finally, “theory” provides the propositions, which suggest generalizable relationships between a category and its concepts, and between discrete categories. Originally, Glaser and Strauss (1967) called this element “hypotheses”.

This section provides a deeper understanding of CSR strategies on consumers. Fig. 1 reflects the interrelations among the main concepts identified during interviews that helps guiding this section. With this aim, results start exploring the importance and effect of CSR and how it influences the consumers’ insights from the managers’ perspective; it permitted a deeper understanding of those weaknesses on CSR implementation. Next, it assesses CPD regarding products made under situations where human and labor rights are being violated. Then, it refers to the specificities of food products compared to other products to evaluate consumers’ awareness of the main problems and its brand. Finally, it identifies mitigation measures to improve bad social practices in FVCs and to identify the opinion leaders from the consumers’ view.

Fig. 1.

Interrelationship among the main concepts.

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Fig. 1 shows the main elements that influence CSR, which should be considered when referring to social sustainability in FVCs. CSR has an impact on consumers, mainly in their behavior and decisions. Thus, products produced by companies with CSR could have an influence on CPD. Moreover, serious problems such as child labor, modern slavery, forced labor, bondage and bad working conditions appeared during the interviews to raise awareness and tackle those situations. Also, there are companies addressing these issues within their CSR plus other social issues – i.e. gender balance, trainings, decent working conditions, among others. In order to achieve the main objective of this paper, the analysis highlights the main problems along the FVCs. In addition, Fig. 4 (Appendix III) provides a complete outlook of the interlinkages among codes and categories extracted from the analysis.

Consumers choose products based on a variety of factors although price is often highly important (e.g. clothes, food, furniture, etc.). Therefore, it exists a need to change the system. It is important to make the right balance between the real price and the product. Educating the consumer on the real price of a product will require a change in the system of purchasing. However, if the final price is more expensive, consumers may not be able to afford these products. This occurs because there are consumers that cannot, even if they want to buy sustainable products, because they have other priorities and/or obligations where to spend their money.

Certainly, consumers expect that the products offered are safe and wholesome, respecting the environment and the people who made or produced them. They are sensitive to big scandals, as it has happened with environmental issues. Currently, people are focusing more on environmental issues, where NGOs have pushed retailers and wholesalers to change their operations and requirements to buy environmentally sustainable products. Meanwhile, there are a lot of food products where situations of slavery, child forced labor, and other type of abuses are taking place. Retailers and wholesalers might know about this situation and most of the time they still prefer to buy products at a lower price as long as it does not affect the retailers and wholesalers’ image or reputation. In addition, there is a relationship between the consumer and the supermarket, where the consumer trusts that a specific supermarket buys its products responsibly:

The normal consumer goes into the supermarket and expects everything to be correct, even if they see the same products with different prices elsewhere. Consumers do not have to question themselves.