Powerful Alliances and Institutional Change: Sustainable Consumption and Production in China

Abstract

With its fundamental transformation over the last decades, the dairy industry is a prime example of China’s rapidly changing consumption and production systems. Following the 2008 melamine scandal, there have been particular efforts to achieve greater consolidation and concentration in the historically fragmented Chinese dairy industry giving rise to highly integrated national processors. Drawing upon new institutional theories and notions of legitimacy, this paper explores how the national dairy processors, in a powerful alliance with governmental actors and multinational corporations, engaged in institutional change toward new orders emphasising food safety in the Chinese dairy consumption and production system (CPS). We contribute to the literature on organisations and the natural environment in three ways. First, we evidence strategies of the alliance to institutionalise new practises by constructing legitimacy and engaging in institutional work. Second, we engage in a critical analysis of the unintended consequences of this new order for more sustainable consumption and production, especially with respect to environmental impacts and the interests of less powerful actors. Third, our analysis raises questions about the suitability of current theories of institutional change to understand current dynamics within the Chinese food production and consumption system, a context increasingly relevant for global markets. We discuss the need for greater consideration of the nature and conduct of powerful alliances.