Abstract
This chapter assesses the meaning of and possibilities for responsible consumption in India in light of its rapidly growing middle class, and in particular the role of public and private standards. Will the growth of India's middle class enable the development of a conscious, proactive civil society, or will it entail unsustainable consumerism? The issue is complicated due to the persistence of poverty and widespread informality. While incomes have been rising in the last decade, the ‘new’ middle class is a heterogeneous group, and some of its members are still quite poor in absolute terms. For those consumers price considerations will remain paramount, and public standards or regulations will continue to matter the most. However, with discretionary consumption assuming prominence among the wealthier consumers, private standards might become increasingly important - as they have in the global West. Whether and how the civil society agents - including the few successful domestic business models where local production and sales are geared to suit global private standards - will influence responsible consumption remains to be seen.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
For consumers, private standards transmit information about a product’s technical specifications, its compliance with health and safety criteria, and the quality of the labour and environmental conditions under which it has been produced and sourced (Nadvi 2008, p. 325). In this chapter, we focus on labour and environmental standards as prime examples of an extrinsic type of standard—or credence good—where consumers cannot deduce the actual implementation of, for example, decent wages and protective clothing for local workers from the physical end product (Linneman et al. 2006; Tirole 1988). However, when a standard delivers on its promise, and is trusted by consumers, standards in principle can connect developmental objectives with fulfilling consumer demands for social responsibility and environmental sustainability.
References
Alden D, Steenkamp JE, Batra R (1999) Brand positioning through advertising in Asia, North America, and Europe: the role of global consumer culture. J Mark 63(1):75–87
Appiah A (2010) The honor code: how moral revolutions happen. W. W. Norton, New York
Asian Development Bank (2010) Key indicators for Asia and the Pacific 2010. ADB, Manila
Auger P, Devinney TM, Louviere JJ, Burke PF (2010) The importance of social product attributes in consumer purchasing decisions: a multi-country comparative study. Int Bus Rev 19(2):140–159
Banerjee AV, Duflo E (2008) What is middle class about the middle classes around the world? J Econ Perspect 22(2):3–28
Barrientos S, Smith S (2006) Evaluation of the ethical trading initiative. Institute of Development Studies, Brighton
Bartley T (2007) Institutional emergence in an era of globalization: the rise of transnational private regulation of labor and environmental conditions. Am J Sociol 113(2):297–351
Basu AK, Hicks RL (2008) Label performance and the willingness to pay for fair trade coffee: a cross-national perspective. Int J Consum Stud, 32(5):470–478
Beinhocker E, Farrell D, Zainulbhai A (2007) Tracking the growth of India’s middle class. McKinsey Q 3(3):51–61
Belk R, Costa JA (1998) The mountain man myth: a contemporary consuming fantasy. J Consum Res 25(3):218–240
Birdsall N, Graham C, Pettinato S (2000) Stuck in the tunnel: is globalization muddling the middle class? Working Paper No. 14, Center on Social and Economic Dynamics, Brookings Institution
Blowfield M (2007) Reasons to be cheerful? What we know about CSR’s impact. Third World Q 28(4):683–695
Bray J, Johns N, Kilburn D (2010) An exploratory study into the factors impeding ethical consumption. J Bus Ethics 98(4):597–608
Callon M., Meadel C, Rabeharisoa V (2002) The economy of qualities. Econ Soc 31(2):194–217
Cleveland M et al (2007) Ethnic identity, consumer ethnocentrism, and materialism: an international exploration of convergence and divergence. In: Proceedings of the Administrative Sciences Association of Canada Annual Conference (pp 290-306). Administrative Sciences Association of Canada, Ottawa.
de Mooij M (2000) The future is predictable for international marketers: converging incomes lead to diverging consumer behaviour. Int Mark Rev 17(2):103–113
De Pelsmacker P, Driesen L, Rayp G (2005) Do consumers care about ethics? Willingness to pay for fair-trade coffee. J Consum Aff 39(2):363–385
Easterly W (2001) The middle class consensus and economic development. J Econ Growth 6(4):317–335
Elliott K, Freeman RB (2001) White hats or Don Quixotes? Human rights vigilantes in the global economy. National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge
Eng T-Y, Bogaert J (2010) Psychological and cultural insights into consumption of luxury western brands in India. J Cust Behav 9(1):55–75
Fernandes L (2000) Restructuring the new middle class in liberalizing India. Comp Stud South Asia, Afr Middle East 20(1 and 2):88–104
Gereffi G, Garcia-Johnson R, Sasser E (2001) The NGO industrial complex. Foreign Policy 125:56–65
Goswami P (2008) Is the urban Indian consumer ready for clothing with eco-labels? Int J Consum Stud 32(5):438–446
Henrich J, Heine S, Norenzayan A (2010) The weirdest people in the world? Behav Brain Sci 33:61–135
Henson S, Humphrey J (2010) Understanding the complexities of private standards in global agri-food chains as they impact developing countries. J Dev Stud 46(9):1628–1646
Hofstede G (1980) Culture’s consequences: international differences in work-related values. Sage, Newbury Park
Iyer G, Laplaca P, Sharma A (2006) Innovation and new product introductions in emerging markets: strategic recommendations for the Indian market. Ind Mark Manag 35(3):373–382
Jain SK, Kaur G (2004) Green marketing: an attitudinal and behavioural analysis of Indian consumers. Glob Bus Rev 5:187–205
Jain SK, Kaur G (2006) Role of socio-demographics in segmenting and profiling green consumers. J Int Consum Mark 18:107–146
Jenkins R (2001) Corporate codes of conduct: self-regulation in a global economy. United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, Geneva
Kharas H (2010) The emerging middle class in developing countries. OECD Development Centre, Paris
Knorringa P (2011) Value chain responsibility in the global south. In: Murshed SM, Goulart P, Serino L (eds) South-south globalization: challenges and opportunities for development (pp 194–208). Routledge, London
Linneman A et al (2006) Consumer-driven food product development. Trends Food Sci Technol 17(4):184–190
Mayer F, Gereffi G (2010) Regulation and economic globalization: prospects and limits of private governance. Bus Polit 12(3):1–25
Merz M, He Y, Alden, D (2008) A categorization approach to analyzing the global consumer culture debate. Int Mark Rev 25(2):166–182
Nadvi K (2008) Global standards, global governance and the organization of global value chains. J Econ Geogr 8(3):323–343.
NCEUS (2008) Contribution of the unorganised sector to GDP: report of the sub committee of a NCEUS task force. National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector, New Delhi
O’Rourke D (2008) Market movements: nongovernmental organization strategies to influence global production and consumption. J Ind Ecol 9(1–2):115–128
Ponte S, Gibbon P (2005) Quality standards, conventions and the governance of global value chains. Econ Soc 34(1):1–31
Ramachandran J, Pant A, Pani SK (2012) Building the BoP producer ecosystem: the evolving engagement of fabindia with Indian handloom artisans. J Prod Innov Manag 29:33–51
Ravallion M (2009) The developing world’s bulging (but vulnerable) “Middle Class”. World Bank, Washington
Reardon T, Timmer CP, Minten B (2010) Supermarket revolution in Asia and emerging development strategies to include small farmers. In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1003160108. Accessed 28 Jul 2011
Savani K, Markus HR, Conner AL (2008) Let your preference be your guide? Preferences and choices are more tightly linked for North Americans than for Indians. J Personal Soc Psychol 95(4):861–876
Saxena R (2010) The middle class in India: issues and opportunities. Deutsche Bank Research, Frankfurt am Main
Seidman GW (2003) Monitoring multinationals: lessons from the anti-apartheid era. Polit Soc 31(3):381–406
Sen A (2009) The idea of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge
Shukla P (2010) Status consumption in cross-national context: socio-psychological, brand and situational antecedents. Int Mark Rev 27(1):108–129
Tirole J (1988) The theory of industrial organization. MIT Press, Cambridge
Varma PK (1998) The great Indian middle class. Viking, New Delhi
Wilson D, Dragusanu R (2008) The expanding middle: the exploding world middle class and falling global inequality. Goldman Sachs, New York
World Bank (2007) Global economic prospects: managing the next wave of globalization. World Bank, Washington
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer India
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Knorringa, P., Guarín, A. (2014). Standards and Consumer Behaviour of the Rising Middle Class in India. In: Das, K. (eds) Globalization and Standards. India Studies in Business and Economics. Springer, New Delhi. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-1994-1_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-1994-1_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New Delhi
Print ISBN: 978-81-322-1993-4
Online ISBN: 978-81-322-1994-1
eBook Packages: Business and EconomicsEconomics and Finance (R0)