Fair Trade: the creation of new knowledge in a sector characterized by positive externalities in both developing and industrialized countries

The authors define Fair Trade sector and competences from an economic perspective. The competence is the result of a process of elaboration, exploitation and use of individual and social resources. This result depends on the capabilities to transform such resources in functionings. The individual has material and immaterial resources at disposal, which include personal characteristics of the worker, background, ability, interests, behaviour and the specific functional connection between the individual and the resources. The paper draws on motivations and values, which support the activity of the individual in the Fair Trade Organization (FTO). The tasks performed in the FTO puts in evidence experiences of informal learning through learning-by-doing, learning-by-interacting, learning-by-using. In synthesis, applying this approach, it is possible to give evidence that the acquisition of competences also depends on motivation, behaviour, time and quality of time spent in FTO and on the kind of structure where the volunteer works.