Abstract
With the increasing information transparency of business operations’ environmental influences, public opinion plays an important role in the green technology adoption of enterprises. Identifying the diffusion path of public opinion involving the process of enterprise green technology adoption is a significant task to verify the triggering mechanisms among the external factors and internal ones. An appropriate framework may help to clarify how the sustainability elements of public opinion are introduced to green technology adoption. Therefore, an interpretive structural-modeling (ISM)-based approach was applied to explore the basic transmission process and path of public opinion involving green technology adoption in enterprise practices. From the pressure of public opinion to the stakeholders involved, as well as the corresponding operational environmental activities, this study explored the psychological behavior of internal and external stakeholders and tried to clarify what the driving elements of green technology adoption are and how they relate to each other. Based on the field data collected from practitioners with Chinese contextual experience, the driving elements of the enablers of green technology adoption by enterprises were identified, and the fundamental triggering mechanisms of the public opinion pressure among them were analyzed. Thereafter, the influence of internal and external stakeholders involving green technology adoption and their corresponding behaviors under the pressure of public opinion were determined and expounded comprehensively, which illustrates the diffusion path of how public opinion influences the operational green technology adoption. This may narrow the gap between public environmental expectation and business operations. Finally, the managerial implications and the limitations of this study were concluded. The explanatory corresponding ISM model established in this study enriches the literature on the theoretical research of the mechanisms of green technology adoption.
Highlights
With the boom traditional industry and wealth, the ecological environment has been degraded dramatically, resulting in many negative impacts, such as resource exhaustion and serious pollution [1]
The elements contributing to green technology adoption (GTA) as enablers were determined based on stakeholder theory, enriching the literature in the field of enterprise’s sustainable development within the Chinese context
The theoretical framework showed the diffusion path with the map of the interrelationships among elements involving GTA, and the fundamental transitive mechanism was illustrated with hierarchical levels, which display the different roles regarding their adjacency and dependence attributes during the diffusion process
Summary
With the boom traditional industry and wealth, the ecological environment has been degraded dramatically, resulting in many negative impacts, such as resource exhaustion and serious pollution [1]. Encountering strong public opinion and uncertain environmental problems, the governments, who play the role of “watchdog” regarding environmental protection, have issued a series of industrial policies, regulations, and norms. They encourage enterprises to adopt green technology with guidance and specifications for practitioners [3]. The challenge that policy designers and enterprises face is identifying the potential enablers, the influencing diffusion path, and the transferring network of GTA among internal and external operational stakeholders [4]. It is imperative to explore a clear map of the triggering and promoting mechanisms of external public opinion for the GTA of enterprises for sustainable operation.
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