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This research analyses the impact of customers and government regulations on the implementation of socio-environmental practices in certifying organic agricultural products. It explores the dyad’s relationship between the focal company and its suppliers in the application of socio-environmental practices.

This study uses a quantitative methodology through a survey approach, with a sample of 206 agro-extractivists from the acai berry supply chain. The data are evaluated using regression analysis.

The main results reveal that customer pressure positively influences the implementation of social and environmental practices, but suggest a non-significant relationship between government regulations and the impact on environmental practices implementation. Social and environmental practices are positively related to operational performance. A moderating effect of organic certification is found in the relationship between customer pressure and the application of environmental practices.

The main contributions are exploring the use of socio-environmental practices in an emerging economy and organic certification as a moderating variable, revealing an “institutional void” that may hamper the enforcement of government regulations.

This study aims to analyse the strategic moves used by major tobacco corporations to thwart the ratification of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in Brazil.

The authors conducted a detailed historical case study spanning 1988–2005 and encompassing the period leading up to Brazil’s FCTC ratification. The authors collected qualitative data from various sources to triangulate and develop a comprehensive historical account.

The historical analysis identified three distinct phases. First, the acquisition of a Brazilian cigarette factory, Souza Cruz, by British American Tobacco dramatically altered power dynamics, strengthening the position of the tobacco industry. The second phase regards the era of dictatorship and the efforts of various actors advocating against smoking and the tobacco industry. The third phase involved Brazil’s re-democratisation and the challenges of securing FCTC ratification, during which fierce industry opposition had to be overcome. Throughout these phases, the authors identified four key strategies used by multinational corporations (MNCs) in Brazil to uphold unsustainable practices and products that contradicted public interests instead of reforming them: shaping collective memory, dissimulation, re-presentation and redirecting attention.

This study contributes to critical international business research on emerging economies by examining how Brazil’s position in the global capitalist system has influenced its dependency and how MNCs produce and maintain cycles of poverty and unsustainable practices through the exploitation of power dynamics within the country.

This research aims to identify Brazil's socioeconomic vulnerability to wicked multi-problems arising from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) (2019–2020), from the most extensive (∼ 3,000 km) oil spill in tropical oceans (2019/2020) and from the highest rate of wildfires in the last decade.

To this end, the authors measured the socioeconomic vulnerabilities of the 27 Brazilian states to these multi-problems (COVID-19 + Oil Spill + wildFire), considering the effects of these events individually and together. In addition, the authors calculated the vulnerability indices using two variables: production value and number of jobs created by an economic activity.

Results show the states of São Paulo, Minas Gerais, and Rio de Janeiro as the most susceptible, with a potential loss of 74.2% in production value and 47% in active employment relationships, caused by these overlapping events in time. The results also demonstrate that the country has failed in the coordination and management of these events (separately and jointly), showing difficulties especially in the stages of immediate response and recovery.

Regarding its contributions, this paper innovates by establishing an unprecedented overlap of wicked problems, linking this concept to the analysis of socioeconomic vulnerability of the affected communities, through a model that applies to other regions worldwide.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-09-2021-0536