Scholars have identified various factors for adopting green IT by organizations from different perspectives. However, the studies about the priority of those factors and the interdependent relations among them are relatively lack. To address this problem, we use the Motivation-Opportunity-Ability (MOA) framework to establish a systematic model of the factors which drive firms' green IT practices. Furthermore, an integrated Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) and Analytic Network Process (ANP) approach has been adopted to analyze the complex relations among different factors and determine the weight distribution of them. The results show that top managers supports, policy and regulation, institutional pressure and human resources are key factors driving firms' green IT practices. This study provides the implications for organizations and policy makers to understand and develop strategies to implement green IT.
IntroductionInformation technology (IT) is the cornerstone for the development of modern society. The dependence of various industries on IT is rising [1]. But at the same time, the energy consumption, carbon dioxide emissions and increased e-waste brought about by IT cause great anxiety. Therefore, green energy conservation emerges as the main theme of IT development since it reduces the negative impact of IT on the environment [2]. Green IT is defined as "the research and practice of design, construction and use of hardware, software and information technology with a positive impact on the environment" [3]. The application of green IT not only brings benefits to enterprises but also plays an important role in supporting environmentally sustainable growth [4,5]. The term "Green IT" has become more and more popular and the number of related studies increases rapidly [6].However, there are still several gaps between the research and practice of green IT [1]. As a young field, a unified comprehensive framework for green IT is lacked [3] which causes each firm has its own criteria about implementing green IT [5]. Furthermore, there are few studies focusing on the relations and the quantitative evaluation of those driving factors. Through addressing the question, our study contributes to green IT from two aspects. Theoretically, this paper develops the Motivation-Opportunity-Ability (MOA) framework to establish a new systematic model of the factors which drive green IT practices. Empirically, on the basis of the model, we analyze the relations among those factors and identify the key factors by using an integrated Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) and Analytic Network Process (ANP) approach.The remainder of the paper is divided into four sections. Section 2 establishes the systematic model based on literature review. Section 3 introduces the methodology, data collection and analysis procedure. Section 4 explains the relations among various factors and discusses the analysis results. In section 5, the conclusions and limitations of the article are presented.
Theoretic...