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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Based on a decolonial perspective from Latin America, this paper aims to offer a different history of the creation of Brazil’s Consumer Defense Code (CDC), analyzing the process through which Eurocentric influences, especially coming from Consumers International (CI), became present in the development of the code.

A qualitative historical research was developed using marketing amnesia and decolonialism as its theoretical backdrop. Primary and secondary data are used as source of information. Primary data were obtained through interviews with two authors of the CDC. Secondary data were collected from academic articles and books, reports, magazines and consumer organization websites, as well as journalistic articles.

During the drafting of the CDC and after its promulgation, the presence of Eurocentric forces was constant, given the interests of CI and other agents in influencing Brazil’s consumer practices, subordinating them to those of the Global North. This Eurocentric presence was accepted by the Brazilian jurists that drafted the CDC, which led to the incorporation of both laws and bills from Eurocentric countries and the United Nations Guidelines for Consumer Protection into the code.

Such discussions are scarce in marketing, due to the area’s amnestic state regarding the past. While selectively forgetting certain pasts, marketing fails to both acknowledge its tendency to subordinate consumerist actions to those accepted by the Eurocentric world, and to establish analyses that deal with mimetic processes, to minimize asymmetries between companies and consumers, especially in emerging economies, and, even more, dichotomies between the Global North and the Global South.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of consumer protection agencies. In the light of growing importance of consumerism in developing countries, the paper measures the level of satisfaction with the performance provided by five different consumer protection agencies, in a chosen country, Saudi Arabia.

This study is based on a questionnaire survey conducted in Saudi Arabia. Based on a model developed for this study, the paper uses empirical research to determine customers' satisfaction with consumer protection agencies.

Results based on testing of hypotheses indicate that overall satisfaction is primarily derived from the objectives and roles played by consumer protection agencies. Results reveal that consumers assign different levels of importance to various dimensions when evaluating satisfaction with consumer protection agencies in Saudi Arabia.

Limited sample size and the generalization of results for the entire Kingdom although the sample has been confined to the eastern province region are the limitations of this study.

The findings of this study have implications on the manner in which consumer protection agencies in Saudi Arabia must operate. Besides, findings of this study have also implications for business operating in Saudi Arabia.

This study makes a valuable contribution given the fact that there is a dearth of empirical studies covering the measurement of consumer satisfaction role played by consumer protection agencies in Saudi Arabia.

This chapter aims to examine Bank Negara Malaysia’s (BNM) approach in fulfilling its financial consumer protection mandate from unfair contract terms and the statutory framework relevant for consumer protection in the domestic market. This is a qualitative-based research. Using content analysis, this study analyses BNM’s Financial Stability and Payment Systems Report from 2012 to 2016, specifically on the ‘market conduct and consumer empowerment’ to explore BNM’s prudential regulatory, supervisory and consumer protection roles in protecting bank consumers from unfair contract terms. It is found that even if a number of standards and guidelines have been issued by BNM in improving ‘fairness and transparency’, the potential risk facing bank consumers from unfair terms in standard consumer contracts of Islamic banks especially where terms may be unfair or unclear remains unchanged. This study recommends that BNM as the Central Bank and financial regulator of Malaysia promotes self-regulation of the Islamic banks by adopting value-based banking of a consumer-focussed culture in delivering an effective protection for consumers from unfair contract terms and empowering them in their dealings with Islamic banks in Malaysia. This study will be helpful in bringing a policy formulation by BNM in identifying their weak areas and suggesting improvements in pursuing a strong consumer protection agenda from unfair contract terms.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the conditions that allow the co-existence of alternative logics in an institutional field for an extended period.

This is a case study that examined the complaint-handling processes of phone companies based on documentary research, which provided the information that allowed the development of a script to interview organizational actors in this field.

The explanation for this behavior that does not attempt to deinstitutionalize other institutions’ practices relates to the actors’ need for the other field participants’ collaboration to improve their activities.

The specific characteristics of the Brazilian context can only suggest that alternative logics may coexist, which therefore opens opportunities for future studies to discuss the possible reproduction of these results in other societies. Similarly, because this research was restricted to the complaint field, other studies conducted in fields where actors are faced with alternative possibilities, such as with the judicial system, should examine and expand on these concepts. This study sought to cover the viewpoints of multiple important actors in the field to cover the whys and hows these logics coexist. However, a more comprehensive availability of respondents might have brought still better insights to the study.

One implication of this study is the fact that firms in Brazil must be aware of the alternative redress channels that are available to consumers. The different procedural norms can cause a great deal of annoyance because firms have to be updated with all of them and eventually build specialized teams to address them. The awareness of the existence of multiple logics in this field should orient the Brazilian telephony industry’s regulator in formulating policies that take this fact into consideration. To do this, the regulator should consider a regular consultation forum in which the main consumer protection organizations and government agencies gather to discuss improvements given that there is already informal collaboration. Public policy should also take into consideration the fact that consumers do not complain most of the time for lack of knowledge or disbelief in supporting organizations.

The main contribution is the alternative logics notion in addressing complaints in this field. This is an issue that has not been practically explored in the literature. The difference between an alternative logic and a competing one lies in the fact that the practices, structures and symbols in the first case represent alternative possibilities for actors to achieve a specific objective, whereas in the second case, the weaker logics tend to disappear due to a stronger one.

The 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.

A 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.

Results 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.

Although the sample examined was not probabilistic, the evidence generated by the data collection and also the documents examined confirmed the results, enhancing the findings.

Government and consumer protection organizations could use this information to envision new ways to perfect regulation in order to avoid a complaint increase.

The 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.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the impact of internet of everything (IoE) on marketing analytics, the benefits and challenges it presents and the implications of its policy and legal framework.

Qualitative research methods are used across privacy statements and consumer social media data to determine factors of concern for business and consumers.

The qualitative analysis of privacy statements and consumer social media data unveils factors of concern that are common for businesses and consumers, such as user consent and data security, as well as problems specific to the IoE, including the use of mobile devices and various service providers. The study also shows a differentiation in the levels of information privacy concerns for marketing practice, the use of personal information, sharing information with third parties and consumer consent and agreement to critical terms.

Recommendations for policymakers, practitioners and researchers, especially concerning the need for more studies related to the issues of data security, information privacy and personal information are addressed.

There is a need to assess the potential implications that the use of marketing analytics in the IoE can have for marketing policy, governmental regulations and industry self-regulation. The purpose of this research is to perform an exploratory evaluation of the impact of IoE on marketing analytics, the benefits and challenges it presents and the implications of its policy and legal framework.

The large, all‐purpose local authorities established by the Local Government Re‐organization Act, 1972, for England and Wales—Scottish local government re‐organization is yet to be completed—are operative; members have long since been elected and organization and staffing, if not complete, at least ready to commence. It is certainly the greatest upheaval since urban and rural sanitary authorities were set up about the middle of the last century. The last change of any magnitude was in 1934; small, however, compared with 1974. At that time, there were 62 county councils, 83 county boroughs and nearly 300 municipal boroughs, 29 metropolitan boroughs, more than 600 urban and about 500 rural districts; roughly 1,600 local authorities. The tremendous reduction in authorities by the present re‐organization illustrates the extent of the upheaval.

Asymmetries in information, where sellers have more information than buyers about product qualities, may prevent firms from supplying some goods and services despite the fact that consumers are willing to pay adequately for them. The frequency and importance of such market failures is growing with the increase in buyers’ interest in unobservable qualities (attributes) of products, including the nature of their production processes. Certification by credible third parties may reduce the frequency and mitigate consequences of market failures. Certification creates a variety of challenges for both marketers and regulators. In this paper, we examine the emergence of alternative domestic and international regulatory regimes for certifying some qualities of products and services. We explore the implications of these regimes and country and product characteristics to the formulation of international marketing strategies. We illustrate our findings through a case study of the forest products industry.