O paradoxo da inércia: uma análise institucional sobre mudança e estabilidade na apropriação da sustentabilidade no setor da cachaça artesanal

Abstract

This study investigates the complex process of sustainability logic appropriation by micro and small pot still cachaça distilleries. This sector, of profound cultural and economic relevance to Brazil, operates embedded in strong traditions, inertia, and institutional voids. Faced with increasing pressure for responsible socio-environmental practices, the research seeks to answer why and how these organizations, situated in a complex institutional field, assimilate, practice, or resist the logic of sustainability. The theoretical framework articulates Institutional Theory, focusing on the concepts of logics, institutional work, and inertia, in dialogue with Practice Theories. The methodology, qualitative in approach and guided by assumptions of empirical constructionism, is based on a multiple case study of eight distilleries representing the sector's diversity. The thesis is structured into integrated chapters that, grounded in a preliminary meta-synthesis and integrative review, build a robust analytical framework for the indepth empirical investigation of the cases, moving away from fragmentation into isolated articles. The results reveal that sustainability appropriation is a heterogeneous phenomenon, unfolding into multiple trajectories contingent upon the nature of the actors' agency (entrepreneurial, heir-driven, or collective), the dominant institutional logic in each organization (market, tradition, or political), and the paradoxical role of inertia, which manifests simultaneously as a barrier to change and as a strategic asset for identity preservation. It is concluded that understanding the sector's transition toward sustainability requires an analytical model that recursively integrates these variables, overcoming linear views of institutional change