The Emergence of Green Information Technology (Green IT): the Uses of ICTs for Corporate Environmental Sustainability

摘要：绿色信息技术（green IT）作为可持续技术创新的一种前沿形式，是近年来出现的重要社会和商业现象之一，本项目是对绿色信息技术的研究。本研究将以沟通与变革的过程观为基础，探讨环境可持续性的价值、高科技产业的发展方向与环境可持续性的斗争，以及围绕各种绿色IT创新的组织行为变化。本研究将解决以下主要研究问题：绿色IT和IT绿化的含义是什么？为什么高科技公司采用绿色资讯科技创新？为什么绿色资讯科技可以被视为一种必要或机遇？高科技企业是如何采用绿色IT创新的？在IT绿化和组织变革的话语和实践变革中涉及哪些沟通过程？该项目提出了一种混合方法，使用定性案例研究来为全行业绿色IT创新的定量研究提供信息。案例研究还将辅以对来自不同组织和机构的绿色IT专家和变革推动者的初步访谈。作为主要的研究方法，案例研究将涉及几个选定的IT公司的比较案例研究，使用深度访谈、关键文件审查和参与者观察的结合方法。更广泛的影响利用来自前沿技术和组织创新的经验数据，该项目将有助于推进通信、科学-技术-社会、组织变革、技术创新以及商业和环境等领域的学术研究。该项目还具有重要的意义，因为它为企业和组织提供了宝贵的经验教训和现实检查，因为它们正在考虑如何通过绿色IT实现环境可持续发展和经济上可行的战略。

NSF STS Dissertation Improvement Grant Manuel Castells and Jingfang LiuAbstract:This project is a study of green Information Technology (green IT), which has emerged as a cutting-edge form of sustainable technological innovation and one of the key social and business phenomena in the past few years. The research will be grounded in a process view of communication and change and move to explore the values of environmental sustainability, the high tech industry's evolving orientation and struggle toward environmental sustainability, and their adoption of changes in organizational behavior surrounding various types of green IT innovation. Intellectual meritThe study will address the following primary research questions: What are the meanings of green IT and IT greening? Why are high-tech firms adopting green IT innovation and why can green IT be structured as a necessity or an opportunity? How are high-tech firms adopting green IT innovation and what communication processes are involved in both the discursive and practice change of IT greening and organizational change? The project proposes a mixed method using qualitative case studies to inform a quantitative study of industry-wide green IT innovation. The case study will also be supplemented with a preliminary set of interviews with green IT experts and change agents from diverse organizations and agencies. As the main methodology, the case study will involve several comparative case studies of selected IT firms using a combined method of in-depth interviews, critical document review, and participant observation. Broader impactWith empirical data from a leading-edge technological and organizational innovation, this project will help advance academic inquiry in the fields of communication, science-technology-society, organizational change, technological innovation, and business and environment. The project also bears crucial meanings by providing valuable lessons and reality check for business and organizations at large as they consider strategies about how to move towards being environmentally sustainable as well as economically viable through green IT.