Environmental Sustainability: A Study on the Perspective of Institutional Theory

Abstract

The aim of this study is to analyze the innovative forces that influence a university for the donation of environmental sustainability practices, from the perspective of institutional theory. To reach the proposed objective, a questionnaire was applied about environmental education with 97 closed questions, adapted by Freitas (2013) and answered by the sustainability department from Universidade Federal da Fronteira Sul (UFFS). Data were tabulated in Excel software treated quantitatively using descriptive statistics. The results show that the innova- tion forces that influence UFFS comes from the internal and external and are motivated by coercive isomorphism (36,56%) and normative isomorphism ( 36,56%) and by mimetic isomorphism (26,88%). Denoted thus, that the institution adopts the environmental sustainability practices influenced predominantly by legislation and professional, instead of imitating legitimized practices between Higher Education Institutions - (HEIs). These results are similar to findings from national and international studies on environmental sustainability in HEIs, which definesas incipient in the segment.