This article examines the activities of multinational corporations (MNCs) in the direct sales industry through an ethnographic case study of micro-entrepreneurship in the Brazilian Amazon. In large emerging economies, intra-country heterogeneity poses challenges for MNCs. Because national trends...

Setting the stage : the Amazon as a horizon -- The making of a model ranch (1973-1976) -- Development in the age of scarcity (1976-1983) -- Out-of-date modernity : forced labor at Cristalino (1983-1986) -- Cristalino's unhappy ending