A Phenomenological study of Institutional Pressures and isomorphism Shaping Corporate Environmental Sustainability of Large Manufacturing Firms: A Developing Economy Perspective

Institutional pressures shape environmental sustainability of manufacturing firms. Existing body of literature tends to assume that coercive, normative and mimetic work in isolation, which may not hold true in the context of developing economies. In economies where corruption, weak regulatory enforcement and economically challenged, institutional pressures may seem inactive. The predominance focused on coercive, normative and mimetic pressures often overlooks isomorphic mechanisms such as, environmental recommendations, regulator environmental limits, environmental mindset, industry environmental expectations, partnership with UN Global compact, mimicking industry leaders and learning from experienced firms. A qualitative and inductive approach grounded in phenomenology was applied, data collected through 24 in-depth interviews with firm-level participants and regulatory officials to investigate their experiences of how institutional pressures shape environmental sustainability in Uganda. A reflexive thematic analysis supported by NVivo was used to analyze data. The study suggests a shift towards environmental sustainability driven by institutional pressures along with their isomorphic mechanisms in developing economy. By building upon the work of DiMaggio and Powell, this study introduces new perspective with a framework contextualized within developing economy, which offers actionable insights for policy regulation, and industry practice while offering a foundation for future empirical testing of themes that merged. The framework comprehensively emphasizes that institutional forces work along with their isomorphic mechanisms for environmental sustainability in developing economies