Anais
Resumo do trabalho
Estudos Organizacionais · Simbolismos, Culturas e Identidades
Título
Cultural Appropriation of Sustainability: A Conceptual Model for Understanding the Organizational Institutionalization of Sustainability
Palavras-chave
Sustainability
Culture
Institutionalization
Autores
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Leila Rocha PellegrinoUNIVERSIDADE PRESBITERIANA MACKENZIE (MACKENZIE)
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Anderson Cesar Gomes Teixeira PellegrinoUNIVERSIDADE ESTADUAL DE CAMPINAS (UNICAMP)
Resumo
Introdução
Sustainability has evolved into a central strategic concern for organizations, driven by growing environmental, social, and institutional pressures. However, its effective implementation requires more than formal policies or symbolic actions—it demands deep cultural transformation. This study explores how sustainability becomes embedded in organizational culture by examining the interplay between strategic intent, institutional forces, and internal symbolic systems.
Problema de Pesquisa e Objetivo
This essay addresses the gap in explaining how sustainability moves beyond formal adoption into cultural integration. It aims to develop a conceptual model that articulates strategy, culture, and institutional theory to understand sustainability as a dynamic and interpretative process of cultural appropriation within organizations.
Fundamentação Teórica
This study integrates three perspectives: sustainability strategy as a vector for organizational realignment; organizational culture as a symbolic and contested space for embedding sustainability; and institutional theory as the lens to examine external pressures, competing logics, and internal translation processes. Together, they explain how sustainability becomes culturally institutionalized within organizations.
Discussão
We propose the Cultural Appropriation and Institutionalization Model of Sustainability, structured around four elements: the institutional environment, organizational translation mechanisms, the internal cultural arena, and institutionalization outcomes. It shows how sustainability is filtered, negotiated, and embedded across organizational cultural levels (Schein, 2010), producing varied results such as internalization, hybridization, or decoupling.
Conclusão
The model reveals that sustainability's cultural embedding is neither automatic nor uniform, but a contingent outcome of symbolic translation and institutional negotiation. It conceptualizes sustainability as a dynamic process of cultural appropriation influenced by conflicting logics, organizational agency, and symbolic tensions that shape distinct cultural trajectories.
Contribuição / Impacto
The essay offers a heuristic framework to guide future research on cultural transformation toward sustainability. It contributes to institutional theory by detailing micro-foundations of institutionalization and provides practical insights for managers and policymakers to better align internal culture with sustainability goals and reduce risks of superficial adoption.
Referências Bibliográficas
Key works include Schein (2010) on cultural levels; Bansal & DesJardine (2014) and Hahn et al. (2015) on sustainability strategy; Greenwood et al. (2008) and Thornton et al. (2012) on institutional theory; Boxenbaum & Pedersen (2009) and Zilber (2002) on institutional translation; and Meyer & Rowan (1977) on decoupling.