Green IT Implementation: Intention and Actual behavior in Green IT

Abstract

Over the last decade, the concern of environmental issues has gained special attention and businesses are taking initiatives to reduce their carbon footprints. Information Technology has its ubiquitous presence in most of the business process and it offers a potential means to tackle the environmental issues, thereby increasing the process efficiency with added advantage of cost reduction. Given the potential benefits of Green IT including the environmental benefits, it is surprising to note that the actual implementation of Green IT is at a very low scale. Therefore, it is important to study Green IT implementation aspects in modern day organizations. The research on factors that affect the intention to practice Green IT and the actual Green IT behavior is at its nascent stage. This paper attempts to come up with a Green IT implementation model with strong theoretical foundation. The base of the model rests upon Technology- organization-environment (TOE) theory, Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) and Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). It then studies the Green IT Behavior of a business school’s Computer Center to help validate and refine the theoretical model. The case study is longitudinal in nature and involves actual implementation of Grid Computing (Green Technology) in the computer center, thus providing practitioner insights on implementation of Green Technology.