Absorptive Capacity and Contextual Factors that Influence Green IT Assimilation

Abstract

The first wave of research in Green IT has often focused on organisational adoption. As Green IT matures in organisations it is important to look beyond adoption and to investigate the assimilation of Green IT. To this end we draw from and compare two theories – contextual theory and absorptive capacity – and investigate which of the two theories better explains the level of Green IT assimilation in organisations. Results from an international survey of 148 large organisations show that both theories explain Green IT assimilation with a medium effect size and that while contextual theory has a slightly higher R2 value than absorptive capacity, the difference is not statistically significant. We then propose a parsimonious and integrated model of Green IT assimilation drawing on contextual and absorptive capacity theories and outline implications for practitioners. The integrated model is parsimonious and has a higher explanatory power implying that a combination of contextual and absorptive capacity factors influences why and how widely and deeply Green IT practices, technologies and values are embedded in the IT people, in the IT management and IT infrastructure of organisations.