Encouraging Sustainable Pro-Environmental Behavior in Organizations Using Information Systems

组织如何鼓励员工在工作场所采取环保行动？DFG资助的项目于2016年7月启动，旨在通过研究信息系统（IS）在增加员工环保行为（PEB）中的作用来解决这个问题。我们从文献中知道，IS与人类活动纠缠在一起。这一传统的研究集中在人力和物力的相互作用上，但却低估了结构和制度的作用。因此，我们的跨学科项目整合了技术，人力和组织因素，以增加对如何通过利用IS的激励潜力来鼓励员工PEB的理解。到目前为止，只有我们的项目借鉴了需要联合分析的技术，人力和组织方面的PEB的直接和调节作用的组织。我们试图通过调查制度逻辑、心理动力学和IS启示之间的相互作用以及它们如何影响基于IS的干预措施的有效性来解决这一差距。特别是，我们有助于呼吁更深入和方法论多样的研究制度逻辑和启示理论和这两种理论的整合，以更好地了解IS使能的组织可持续发展转型。我们的项目由三个研究问题指导：（1）不同的IS启示如何影响员工PEB以及员工如何实现这些启示？(2)信息系统可供性和制度逻辑如何相互作用影响组织的可持续性转型？(3)制度逻辑是如何以及为什么随着时间的推移而变化的？调查这些问题提供了必要的见解游戏化IS的设计和使用员工PEB，制度逻辑对游戏化IS的有效性和制度逻辑的变化动态的影响。基于丰富的数据，我们已经收集了从采访，文件，和观察我们的合作伙伴公司奥迪和Symrise和实验室实验，我们在游戏化的IS工件（即移动的应用程序）中设计了不同的启示，以检查它们在纵向现场实验中鼓励员工PEB的有效性。基于现场实验的使用数据和访谈，我们将采用混合方法来调查员工对启示的实现。为了揭示制度逻辑对可供性实现的影响，我们应用自行开发的量表通过大规模横截面和纵向调查来衡量主导制度逻辑。进一步的访谈将揭示平衡和混合机制如何导致PEB主导制度逻辑的变化。因此，我们的研究环境和设计提供了难得的机会来研究在真实的工作环境中随着时间的推移支持IS的组织可持续发展转型。

How can organizations encourage their employees to act pro-environmentally in the workplace? The DFG-funded project we started in July 2016, seeks to address this question by examining the role of information systems (IS) in increasing employees’ pro-environmental behavior (PEB). We know from literature that IS are entangled with human activity. Research in this tradition has focused on the interplay of human and material agency, but has downplayed the roles of structures and institutions. Therefore, our interdisciplinary project integrates technological, human, and organizational factors to augment the understanding about how to encourage employee PEB by leveraging the motivating potentials of IS. To date, only our project draws on the need for joint analysis of the direct and moderating effects of technical, human, and organizational aspects of PEB in organizations. We seek to address this gap by investigating the interactions between institutional logics, psychological dynamics, and IS affordances and how they influence the effectiveness of IS-based interventions.The investigation will contribute to theory in IS and organizational behavior. Particularly, we contribute to calls for more in-depth and methodological diverse research on institutional logics and affordance theory and the integration of both theories to better understand IS-enabled organizational sustainability transformations. Our project is guided by three research questions: (1) How do different IS affordances influence employee PEB and how are they actualized by employees? (2) How do IS affordances and institutional logics interplay to influence organizational sustainability transformations? (3) How and why do institutional logics change over time? Investigating these questions provides needed insights into the design and usage of gamified IS for employee PEB, influences of institutional logics on the effectiveness of gamified IS and the change dynamics of institutional logics.Based on the rich data we have already gathered from interviews, documents, and observations at our partner companies Audi and Symrise and a laboratory experiment, we designed different affordances in gamified IS artifacts (i.e. mobile apps) to examine their effectiveness in encouraging employee PEB in longitudinal field experiments. Building on usage data and interviews from the field experiments, we will apply a mixed-methods approach to investigate employees’ actualization of affordances. To unveil the impact of institutional logics on affordance actualization, we apply a self-developed scale to measure the dominant institutional logic(s) via large-scale cross-sectional and longitudinal surveys. Further interviews will unearth how balancing and blending mechanisms resulted in a change of the dominant institutional logic for PEB. Thus, our research setting and design provides the rare opportunity to examine IS-enabled organizational sustainability transformations over time in real work environments.