Institutional, Cultural, And Resource Barriers To ESG Adoption In Duqm’s Heavy-Industry Cluster

Abstract

This study investigates why Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) initiatives remain unevenly embedded across Duqm’s heavy-industry cluster, a cornerstone of Oman’s economic-diversification agenda. Adopting an interpretative phenomenological case-study design, the research draws on semi-structured interviews with senior managers and three focus-group discussions involving infrastructure, logistics, oil and gas, consulting, education, and local-government stakeholders. Thematic analysis reveals a multi-layered constellation of barriers. First, ESG literacy is shallow: employees and leaders like confuse ESG with corporate social responsibility or basic compliance, while training sessions are generic and disconnected from job roles. Second, regulatory expectations are opaque and dispersed across several authorities, leading firms to pursue symbolic compliance rather than strategic integration. Third, inside organizations, ESG tasks are bolted onto existing roles without clear ownership, and entrenched silo cultures frame ESG as an external imposition, fostering resistance and fatigue. These findings suggest that policy ambition alone is insufficient; effective ESG adoption hinges on coordinated governance, tailored capacity-building, and structural reforms that embed ESG into performance metrics and cross-functional workflows. By mapping where intentions stall, the study contributes a diagnostic lens for both scholars and practitioners and offers actionable recommendations to transform ESG rhetoric into operational reality.