Social-benefit certification as a game

Tourism ecocertification programs persist and proliferate despite low market penetration and apparent consumer indifference. This has been viewed simply as an early-adoption phase. A two-decade historical analysis of development patterns for 17 programs, however, suggests that they can be analysed as a multi-move political game between corporate and civic advocates, where neither can quit without losing. The political-game framework yields predictions which are testably different from a pure-market early-adopter framework. It also draws a key distinction between consumer-benefit and social-benefit measures, applicable to corporate social responsibility initiatives in many industry sectors.

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► Certification programs benefiting consumers differ from those benefiting society.
► The history of tourism ecocertification is a two-team multi-move political game.