Proceedings of the 1st Business & Management Conference, Vienna

A STUDY ON THE FACTORS IMPACTING MANAGERS’ GREEN IT PERCEPTIONS

SERKAN ADA, SÜMEYRA CEYHAN

Abstract:

Recently, concerns with environmental issues enabled businesses to transform their practices to become more environmentally sensitive. It is widely accepted that carbon emissions have an increasing impact on the climate and environmental problems. It is further known that information technology (IT) makes a significant contribution to carbon emissions, albeit not being directly perceptible to the general public. That’s why, a new term called green IT emerged recently to create a positive and environmentally sensitive movement in IT field. Green IT is defined as the practices and technologies for designing, manufacturing, using, and disposing of computers, servers, and associated devices such as monitors, printers, storage devices, and networking and communication systems to minimize impact on the environment. Businesses have recently become aware of the issues related to green IT, as practicing green IT has a positive impact not only on the environment and global warming, but also on the profits through decreasing energy consumption costs. For this reason, it is necessary to study green IT practices and perceptions of businesses and managements as well as the factors influencing it. This study examines the impact of environmentally sensitive management and human resources on green IT practices. The current study used the data collected via a structured survey conducted in Kahramanmaraş province of Turkey, by incorporating 121 businesses operating in textile, food, steel kitchen utensils, and other sectors. The data analysis with respect to the structural model and the psychometric properties of the research model was done by partial least squares (PLS) method by using SmartPLS software. The results of the data analysis reveal that the measurement model meets all the required criteria (reliability, discriminant validity, convergent validity). According to the results of the structural model, the perceptions of managers concerning the environmentally sensitive management and human resources are positively related to green IT practices. The findings of the current study reveal that businesses that consider environment in their strategic decisions and businesses that have human resources that are aware of the environment in their activities are more likely to have positive attitudes towards practicing green IT.

Keywords: Green IT, environment, environmental sensitivity, environmentally sensitive management, environmentally sensitive human resources

DOI: 10.20472/BMC.2015.001.001

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