Grid Technology as Green IT Strategy? Empirical Results from the Financial Services Industry

Due to the significant increase in IT-related power consumption and the resulting higher CO2 emissions, Green IT has gained considerable attention in industry and society in recent years. Green IT as an engineering paradigm encompasses the multi-faceted, global effort to reduce power consumption and the promotion of environmental sustainability. Due to several parallels between Green IT objectives and the environmental benefits of Grid technology, this article provides first empirical evidence from the financial services industry emphasizing that Grid technology is capable of reducing the environmental impact of IT hardware. Furthermore, the article analyzes the extent to which pressure for environmental sustainability impacts the intention of enterprises to use Grid technology as a means to reduce energy consumption of IT hardware, which is one of the key Green IT objectives

Green Information Technology as Administrative innovation - Organizational factors for successful implementation: Literature Review

There is a considerable amount of awareness of environmental issues and corporate responsibility for sustainability. As such, from a technological viewpoint, Green IT has become an important topic in contemporary organizations. Consequently, organisations are expected to be innovative in their business practices to become more sustainable. Yet, the popularity and adoption of such initiatives amongst employees remain low. Furthermore, the management practices for adhering to Green IT are largely dormant, lacking active incentives for employees to engage in Green IT initiatives. This study observes the phenomenon of Green IT through administrative innovation. In doing so this paper performs a comprehensive analysis of 137 papers published between 2007 and 2015. The paper reveals organizational factors for successful implementation of Green IT as administrative innovation that can be useful to both academia and practice

Matching Economic Efficiency and Environmental Sustainability: The Potential of Exchanging Excess Capacity in Cloud Service Environments

Excess capacity is a major problem for service providers. While manufacturers e.g. can produce on stock to fully utilize their capacity, the service industry traditionally faces the problem of idle capacity resulting in economic and environmental inefficiencies. Recent technological developments offering dynamic information and integration capabilities may help, as they enable an on-demand exchange of excess capacity. To examine the possible benefits of corresponding excess capacity markets, we examine a capacity related optimization problem of a service provider with and without relying on excess capacity. Therefore we build a mathematical model based on queuing theory which is evaluated with a discrete-event simulation applying the situation of providers for banking transaction services. By solving the optimization problem we found reasonable benefits of excess capacity markets concerning the economic and environmental perspective. Being a first quantitative approach, the model thereby builds the basis for empirical validation and further theoretical research

Factors Influencing the Adoption of Health Information Standards in Health Care Organizations: A Systematic Review Based on Best Fit Framework Synthesis

Since the early 1970s, health care provision has experienced rapid growth in the investment and adoption of health information technologies (HITs). However, the development and deployment of HITs has often been conducted in silos, at different organizational levels, within different regions, and in various health care settings; this has resulted in their infrastructures often being difficult to manage or integrate. Health information standards (ie, the set norms and requirements that underpin the deployment of HITs in health care settings) are expected to address these issues, yet their adoption remains to be frustratingly low among health care information technology vendors. Objective This study aimed to synthesize a comprehensive framework of factors that affect the adoption and deployment of health information standards by health care organizations. Methods First, electronic databases, including Web of Science, Scopus, and PubMed, were searched for relevant articles, with the results being exported to the EndNote reference management software. Second, study selection was conducted according to pre-established inclusion and exclusion criteria. Finally, a synthesized best fit framework was created, which integrated a thematic analysis of the included articles. Results In total, 35 records were incorporated into the synthesized framework, with 4 dimensions being identified: technology, organization, environment, and interorganizational relationships. The technology dimension included relative advantage, complexity, compatibility, trialability, observability, switching cost, standards uncertainty, and shared business process attributes. The organization dimension included organizational scale, organizational culture, staff resistance to change, staff training, top management support, and organizational readiness. The environment dimension included external pressure, external support, network externality, installed base, and information communication. Finally, the interorganizational relationships dimension included partner trust, partner dependence, relationship commitment, and partner power. Conclusions The synthesized framework presented in this paper extends the current understanding of the factors that influence the adoption of health information standards in health care organizations. It provides policy and decision makers with a greater awareness of factors that hinder or facilitate their adoption, enabling better judgement and development of adoption intervention strategies. Furthermore, suggestions for future research are provided. </jats:sec

Multi-disciplinary Green IT Archival Analysis: A Pathway for Future Studies

With the growth of information technology (IT), there is a growing global concern about the environmental impact of such technologies. As such, academics in several research disciplines consider research on green IT a vibrant theme. While the disparate knowledge in each discipline is gaining substantial momentum, we need a consolidated multi-disciplinary view of the salient findings of each research discipline for green IT research to reach its full potential. We reviewed 390 papers published on green IT from 2007 to 2015 in three disciplines: computer science, information systems and management. The prevailing literature demonstrates the value of this consolidated approach for advancing our understanding on this complex global issue of environmental sustainability. We provide an overarching theoretical perspective to consolidate multi-disciplinary findings and to encourage information systems researchers to develop an effective cumulative tradition of research

Conceptualizing and measuring Green IT Readiness in Finnish companies. Application area: electronic invoice

IT has a dual role in the current climate change actions. Its emissions, 2 % of the annual global CO2e, equal to the much critiqued aviation industry. On the other hand, it can be used to reduce emissions in other sectors. The new area of study, Green IT, focuses on these abilities. The purposes of this research are twofold. Firstly, the goal is to determine Finnish businesses Green IT Readiness -levels. It means companies’ maturity in integrating environmental viewpoint to IT related activities throughout its lifecycle. The G -Readiness framework is also used to test the role of eco-sustainability in adoption of e-invoicing. The second part of the research is about IT’s enabling role in reducing carbon footprint of invoicing as invoices are turned from paper to electronic format. According to the research, the respondent companies’ G -Readiness seems to be mediocre. The framework with four measures (Attitude, Paperless Office, Management and Virtualization) was studied through a survey and tested using Partial Least Squares analysis (PLS). The study concludes that G -Readiness is currently being characterized as an attitude rather than a set of planned and coordinated tasks. Interestingly, the study indicates that environmental considerations do not explain adoption of e-invoicing. The case study on carbon footprint of invoices indicates that an e-invoice is four times more environmentally friendly than a paper invoice. The most reductions arise from increased productivity of IT enabled work, which is measured by office worker’s carbon footprint. Use of paper products and traditional mail delivery were also found to have noticeable impact, while technology and the use of it generated only a fraction of the footprint. The footprint of an office worker had not been accounted for in the previous research. Thus this finding produced totally new information to the field. The findings raise an important point about the link between eco-sustainability and productivity. Adoption of e-invoicing increases productivity and reduces emissions, but businesses have not truly accounted for this link. This indicates that many IT enabled process improvements could easily be accounted for in sustainability reporting. To reach the highest possible reductions in emissions, companies should integrate the eco-sustainability and productivity link to value chain thinking rather than focus on single processes alone

Geschäfts- und Umweltvorteile durch Grid-Technologie : empirische Erkenntnisse aus der Finanzdienstleistungsindustrie

Table of Contents – Cumulative Dissertation Thesis German Summary Summary of Analysis Results for German-Speaking Readers Introductory Paper Introduction and Overview of the Dissertation Paper 1 Vykoukal, Jens / Wolf, Martin / Beck, Roman (2009) Services Grids in Industry: On-Demand Provisioning and Allocation of Grid-based Business Services In: Business & Information Systems Engineering (BISE), 1(2), 177-184 Paper 2 Vykoukal, Jens / Setzer, Michael / Beck, Roman (2008) Grid Architecture for Risk Management: A Case Study in a Financial Institution In: Proceedings of the 12th Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS), Suzhou, China Paper 3 Vykoukal, Jens / Pahlke, Immanuel / Beck, Roman (2011) Impact of Grid Assimilation on Operational Agility in Turbulent Environments: An Empirical Investigation in the Financial Services Industry In: Proceedings of the 19th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS), Helsinki, Finland Paper 4 Vykoukal, Jens / Wolf, Martin / Beck, Roman (2009) Does Green IT Matter? Analysis of the Relationship between Green IT and Grid Technology from a Resource-based View Perspective In: Proceedings of the 13th Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS), Hyderabad, India Paper 5 Vykoukal, Jens (2010) Grid Technology as Green IT Strategy? Empirical Results from the Financial Services Industry In: Proceedings of the 18th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS), Pretoria, South Africa Paper 6 Vykoukal, Jens / Beck, Roman / Wolf, Martin (2010) Impact of Pressure for Environmental Sustainability on Grid Assimilation: Empirical Results from the Financial Services Industry In: Australasian Journal of Information Systems (AJIS), 17(1), 83-106 Appendix: Publications, Curriculum VitaeDa der Fokus dieser kumulativen Dissertation auf der Anwendung von Grid-Technologie in der Finanzdienstleistungsindustrie liegt, werden im Rahmen dieses ersten Kapitels zunächst die Grundlagen von Grid-Computing vorgestellt sowie die Bedeutung von Informationstechnologie (IT) für die Finanzindustrie diskutiert. Anschließend erfolgt eine Vorstellung der zentralen Forschungsziele sowie der Struktur der Arbeit. Das Konzept des Grid-Computing basiert auf einer erstmals im Jahre 1961 erwähnten Idee des Informatik-Pioniers John McCarthy, dass Rechenleistung und Anwendungen der Öffentlichkeit in Zukunft als „Utility“ gegen eine Nutzungsgebühr bereitgestellt werden (Garfinkel 1999), also vergleichbar mit der Bereitstellung von Strom, Wasser oder Gas. Allerdings wurde die Idee erst in den späten 1980er und frühen 1990er Jahren verwirklicht, als intensive Forschungen im Bereich der parallelen Programmierung sowie der verteilten Systeme betrieben wurden (Parashar und Lee 2005). Diese Entwicklungen führten letztlich zu der Idee und dem Begriff des Grid-Computing, der vor allem durch das Buch von Foster und Kesselman (1999) geprägt wurde als eine Metapher für den Zugang zu Rechenleistung, der so einfach gestaltet ist, wie der Zugang zum Strom aus dem Stromnetz. Es bleibt jedoch festzuhalten, dass Grid-Computing weder ein Produkt noch eine Lösung darstellt, sondern ein Konzept einer geteilten IT-Infrastruktur, welche die flexible, sichere und koordinierte Ressourcennutzung einer dynamischen Gruppe von Individuen, Institutionen und Ressourcen ermöglicht (Foster et al. 2001). Grid-Technologie kann somit zur Konsolidierung einer großen Anzahl heterogener und geografisch verteilter IT-Ressourcen (z.B. Rechen- und Speicherressourcen) verwendet werden, um Nutzern und Anwendungen Zugriff auf einen großen „Pool“ von (Gridbasierten) IT-Ressourcen zu ermöglichen. Dieses Konzept ist insbesondere für Unternehmen aus IT-intensiven Industrien (z.B. die Finanzdienstleistungsbranche) von zentraler Bedeutung, da diese zunehmend High-Performance Computing (HPC)-Technologien (z.B. Grid-Technologie) zur Beschleunigung ihrer Geschäftsprozesse einführen müssen, um in ihren dynamischen und kompetitiven Märkten wettbewerbsfähig zu bleiben (Scaramella und Healey 2007). Dies wird durch eine Studie von Joseph et al. (2004) untermauert, die besagt, dass 97% der US-Unternehmen ohne den Einsatz von HPC-Technologie nicht existieren oder nicht konkurrenzfähig sein könnten. ..