PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to question whether companies follow a deliberate strategic internal pattern while responding to consumer complaints or they always offer consumers a fair redress.Design/methodology/approachA complaint sample from consumers addressed to the main Brazilian companies in four industries were examined. The responses directly provided to consumers were contrasted to those given after the mediation of Procon‐SP, the main Brazilian consumer protection agency. As an additional source of evidence a documentary research was conducted with other participants of the complaint process.FindingsResults showed that companies retain or postpone the solution of complaints in order to discourage complainants, but once they appeal to consumer protection agencies their demands are satisfied, even when companies do not fully agree with them. This seems to reveal a strategic intent on their part.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough the sample examined was not probabilistic, the evidence generated by the data collection and also the documents examined confirmed the results, enhancing the findings.Practical implicationsGovernment and consumer protection organizations could use this information to envision new ways to perfect regulation in order to avoid a complaint increase.Originality/valueThe results call the attention to the ways companies respond to consumer complaints, suggesting they do have a strategic intent regarding the solutions provided that go beyond offering a fair redress, as is recommended by marketing models highlighting market orientation and consumer satisfaction.

Purpose Despite the special attention given to consumers by the business and academic literature, the dissatisfaction of Brazilian consumers has increased significantly. This manifest mainly through the initiation of complaints’ procedures against companies at Procon and other civil society consumer protection organizations (CPOs) that began to take over these issues complementarily to governmental action. This paper aims to examine the accomplishments and relevance of these organizations in protecting consumers and in preparation of related public policies. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative case study was conducted involving an in-depth collection of information about a restricted system, which included multiple sources. The information was obtained through semi-structured interviews conducted with CPOs’ executives and documents from the other participating organizations in the consumer protection field. Findings The CPOs have been positively evaluated by participants from the consumer protection field, for their effective action in the intermediation of complaints and in proposing laws and regulations on consumer protection. However, this picture is contrasted with the difficulties imposed by the practices of other field logics, such as legal procedures, media priorities and business interests that, however, collaborate in various occasions. Research limitations/implications CPOs’ relevance is more easily evaluated through social legitimation such as endorsements and declarations by the media, the public, by the CPOs’ own publicity and so on. As consumers can choose from alternative channels for redress, firms should be updated with the different procedural norms of each. Originality/value This paper draws a picture of the work developed by CPOs and indicates a possible assessment of their relevance in a scenario of logics complexity, which can be useful for policy makers.

Although market competition may sound unusual in a religious context, in recent years, Brazil has experienced a dynamic religious market characterized by increasing competitiveness among evangelical churches, mainly between the neo-Pentecostal denominations. The notion of a religious market owes much to a little-known chapter of Smith's classic work, The Wealth of Nations. This paper explores possible associations between Smith's reflections and those of contemporary authors in the qualitative study of neo-Pentecostal and entrepreneurial churches in Brazil. In doing so, this paper: i) highlights the relevance of Smith's traditional perspective for the study of the religious phenomenon, including its entrepreneurial manifestation; ii) innovatively suggests a dynamic and cyclical process between the parishioners' economic rationality and the religious agents' activity, and; iii) strengthens and expands the current literature on the rationalized processes of religious behaviour.

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A necessidade de diversificação de mercados com vistas ao crescimento desafia a pequena e a média empresa. Há pouca literatura referente a empresas brasileiras de pequeno e médio porte (PMEs) que atuam no mercado internacional, embora ocupem relevante papel na economia do país. Este estudo, apoiado nas teorias que explicam a motivação para a internacionalização (dentre elas a teoria desenvolvida por Johanson e Vahlne em 1977 e revista em 1990), bem como nas estratégias de entrada nos países (Root, 1994) e na teoria da decisão (Tversky e Kahneman, 1974; Brauers e Weber,1988; Gordon, 1994; Hammond et al., 1999), buscou conhecer como se deu a internacionalização de empresas brasileiras de pequeno e médio porte que produzem máquinas-ferramenta. Máquinas-ferramenta são produtos que servem de insumo para a produção de vários outros bens da indústria de base e, portanto, são peças-chave para o desenvolvimento industrial de qualquer país. Resultados da pesquisa lastreada em estudo de caso de uma PME e amostra não probabilística revelam que a PME do setor pesquisado não saiu do estágio exportador e que a busca de novos mercados objetivou exclusivamente o crescimento de vendas. O direcionamento para o mercado externo ou partiu do dirigente-proprietário das empresas, ou foi decidido em reunião de diretoria, não tendo sido usado qualquer método proposto na teoria da decisão. Está havendo um processo de redução de exportação para vários tipos de máquinas-ferramenta face às condições cambiais e políticas de crédito ineficazes para apoio às PMEs brasileiras. A forte concorrência dos produtos chineses no mercado interno (até 70% mais baratos) tem reduzido a competitividade da PME do setor. Dados agregados relativos a essa indústria apontam para a contração do setor também no cenário nacional.

O objetivo deste artigo é investigar as percepções e representações sociais do consumidor na rede de pirataria e propor uma alternativa de princípio estratégico de combate a esse comércio ilegal a partir de um modelo de rede que inclui o ator consumidor. A afirmativa básica é que a pirataria se organiza no formato de rede, onde o consumidor é um ator importante, que mantém a rede em razão de suas específicas percepções e representações sociais sobre o governo, sobre as empresas fabricantes, sobre os camelôs e sobre si próprio, percepções essas que abrangem mais do que o preço, que é o fator mais pesquisado no tema de pirataria. A base teórica de apoio é o conceito de rede social que existe como pano de fundo nas redes de negócios, com seus fatores de interdependência, comprometimento, expectativas e representações sociais, bem como o conceito de nó, que é a unidade de estudo das redes. Realizou-se uma pesquisa com grupos de adolescentes e adultos, e os dados mostraram a presença de representações sociais positivas sobre a ponta da pirataria, que é o camelô, e representações sociais negativas sobre o governo e as empresas que combatem a ilegalidade. Nas conclusões, mostra-se que há um ganho de compreensão quando se inclui o ator consumidor na rede, tanto no que se refere à manutenção do comércio pirata quanto às estratégias de combate. Como conclusão secundária importante, considerando os resultados abaixo do esperado por parte do governo no combate à pirataria, sugere-se um princípio estratégico a partir das redes sociais. A premissa da proposta é que só se combate uma rede a partir de outra rede, conforme atestam alguns exemplos de organizações sociais e comerciais.

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The media as a social actor emits discourses that reflect in the institutional context, influencing the process of institutionalization of existing practices. One view about the media in organizational studies is that it is a mechanism of organizational complexity reduction, and in this way, it is the focus of the managers' attention to certain aspects of the environment, which has implications for the way that everyday tasks are accomplished in organizations. In this sense, an interest has emerged to understand how the dissemination of information about the acquisition of a refinery in Pasadena, Texas, by Petrobras was the embryo of an international corruption scandal that compromised the organization's image but was also responsible for the emergence of new organizational practices. The data and information used are from secondary sources: the newspapers and magazines with the largest national circulations. The findings reveal that the media sought to influence individuals by elaborating its understanding of the context without being consistently coherent over time. We propose an analytical model of how the media can act in the gradual change of organizational and actors' practices.