Adoption of Emerging Information and Communication Technology for Sustainability [1 ed.] 1032327626, 9781032327624

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Adoption of Emerging Information and Communication Technology for Sustainability

Editors Ewa Ziemba University of Economics in Katowice Poland Jarosław Wątróbski Institute of Management, University of Szczecin Poland

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A SCIENCE PUBLISHERS BOOK

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First edition published 2024 by CRC Press 2385 NW Executive Center Drive, Suite 320, Boca Raton FL 33431 and by CRC Press 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN © 2024 Ewa Ziemba and Jarosław Wątróbski

CRC Press is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, LLC Reasonable eforts have been made to publish reliable data and information, but the author and publisher cannot assume responsibility for the validity of all materials or the consequences of their use. Te authors and publishers have attempted to trace the copyright holders of all material reproduced in this publication and apologize to copyright holders if permission to publish in this form has not been obtained. If any copyright material has not been acknowledged please write and let us know so we may rectify in any future reprint. Except as permitted under U.S. Copyright Law, no part of this book may be reprinted, reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, microflming, and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publishers. For permission to photocopy or use material electronically from this work, access www.copyright. com or contact the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400. For works that are not available on CCC please contact [email protected]

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are used only for identifcation and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data (applied for) ISBN: 978-1-032-32762-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-32764-8 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-31657-2 (ebk) DOI: 10.1201/9781003316572 Typeset in Times New Roman by Innovative Processors

Acknowledgments There are many we would like to thank for their contributions to this book. As editors and leaders of this project, our first thanks go to the authors of the book chapters who have dedicated their efforts to exploring sustainable development driven by the adoption of emerging ICT. We express our heartfelt appreciation to the reviewers of this book who generously shared their time, expertise, and diligence in reviewing the chapters and providing valuable insights to the authors. Their commitment to maintaining high standards helped ensure the high quality of the papers. We extend our gratitude to the following individuals: • Prof. Alberto Cano, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA; • Prof. Mieczysław Owoc, Wroclaw University of Economics and Business, Poland; • Prof. Zbigniew Pastuszak, Maria Curie-Sklodowska University, Poland; and • Prof. Nina Rizun, Gdansk University of Technology, Poland. Finally, the authors and we hope that readers will find the content of this book useful and interesting for their own research and practical endeavors. With this spirit and conviction, we offer our book, the product of the authors’ intellectual effort, for the readers’ final judgment. We welcome discussions on the topics addressed in this book and eagerly anticipate critical and even polemical voices regarding the content and form. The final evaluation of this publication rests with you, our readers. After engaging with this material, dear readers are invited to share their experiences, ideas, or thoughts. Please feel free to email the editors at ewa.ziemba@ ue.katowice.pl and [email protected].

Introduction We are living in a world of permanent changes. Changes affect people, move enterprises, influence governments, and impact countries, societies, and economies. The key to achieving the benefits that result from change is learning, innovating, and adopting emerging trends. In this book, change relates to sustainable development driven by the adoption of emerging information and communication technologies (ICT).

Why this Book? Succeeding the Brundtland Commission’s report published in 1987, which defined sustainable development, many world institutions, governments, and organizations have been working to ensure economic growth, social equality, and environmental protection. The efforts were stimulated after 2015 when the United Nations member nations accepted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and agreed on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The twenty-first century is a time of intensifying various activities toward sustainable development. Those activities are related to sustainable development as holistic transformations and changes in which the needs of present generations are met without compromising the chances of future generations to meet their own needs. Sustainability is a target goal of holistic transformations and changes. In the recent past, no other domain had such a strong influence on the development of countries and societies than ICT. ICT has changed how we learn, work and rest, conduct business, communicate and interact, and manage social, business, and political lives. As ICT affects everyday lives, they also impact economic growth, social equality, and environmental protection, which further affects sustainable development by enabling economic, social, cultural, political, and ecological suitability improvements. Over the last several years, the role of ICT among a broad array of domains conditioning sustainable development has been increasingly recognized. Sustainable development is, therefore, becoming a scientific and technological endeavor that seeks theories, concepts, methods, approaches, and applications to enhance sustainable development through the adoption of ICT, acquisition of various kinds of sustainability, and commitment to the goals of the 2030 Agenda. In this respect, a greater need for scientific studies and debates on various concepts, models, approaches, and methodological assumptions is required to create foundations for formulating SIS theories. Moreover, a more holistic and systemic

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Introduction

methodological approach to the development of the SIS, covering all dimensions of the information society and sustainable development, has become more important. The burning research question that demands an adequate response is how people, enterprises, and governments can adopt emerging ICT to contribute best to sustainable development and accomplish the 2030 Agenda goals.

What is this Book About? This book represents an important voice in the discourse on the adoption of emerging ICT for sustainability. It focuses on how they act as important enablers of sustainability as well as provide new forward-looking approaches to sustainability, which is driven by emerging ICT adoption. These approaches also embrace the adoption of emerging ICT by business and public organizations to obtain ecological, economic, social, cultural, and political sustainability. The book’s theoretical discussions, conceptual approaches, empirical studies, various views, and perspectives make it a valuable and comprehensive reference work.

How is this Book Organized? The book comprises three parts. Part 1. Theoretical Issues on Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability. This part provides the theoretical context for the considerations in the book. It is devoted to the theoretical topics of sustainable development driven by the adoption of emerging ICT adoption, i.e., concepts, frameworks, models, and approaches showing what, how, and where ICT can be adopted to enhance sustainability. The first chapter, Potential for a Process Framework to Guide the Implementation of Circular Economy Activities in Enterprises proposes a conceptual approach to the alignment of business processes, Industry 4.0, and the 4 R model (repair, reuse, remanufacture, and recycle) of the circular economy. The second chapter, The State of Research on Emerging Information and Communication Technologies for Sustainable Development, recognizes the state of research on the adoption of ICT, especially those described as emerging, for sustainable development. In the third chapter, Analysis of Frameworks for the Integration of Information and Communication Technology into Sustainability, frameworks for the integration of ICT into sustainability are indicated. The fourth chapter, Mapping Areas of ICT Application for Sustainable Management, identifies and describes three dimensions of ICT adoption for sustainable management i.e., business activity areas, functional management areas, and geographic areas. The fifth chapter, A Concept of a Sustainable Digital Healthcare System, presents the concept of a sustainable healthcare system and identifies the role and key factors of ICT adoption to build sustainable digital healthcare systems. In the sixth chapter, The Meta-Design Methodology and Process Adaptability for Sustainability Support, methods of modeling processes to support sustainable development, i.e., Business Process Management (BPM) and Adaptive Case Management (ACM) are presented. The seventh chapter, Pro-environmental Engagement of ICT Enterprises in Poland as an Expression of Sustainable Development, identifies and assesses the importance of ICT companies in terms of environmental issues related to sustainable development.

Introduction

vii

The eighth chapter, The State of Research on Cognitive Technologies for Sustainable Business Processes, presents theoretical and empirical approaches to the application of cognitive technologies in supporting sustainable processes. Part 2. Empirical Approaches to Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability. In the second part of this book, the six chapters focus on the empirical issues, approaches to, and examples of adopting ICT for sustainability. The ninth chapter, The Role of Robotic Process Automation in Sustainable Human Resource Management, identifies links between robotic process automation and sustainable human resource management and develops recommendations for managers to enhance human resource management by the adoption of sustainable robotic process automation tools. The tenth chapter, Sustainable E-Commerce in the Perspective of SDGs and Online Marketplaces, investigates how e-commerce marketplaces adopt ICT to implement sustainable development goals identified in the 2023 Agenda. In the eleventh chapter, The Impact of Technical Aspects of E-Commerce on Sustainability. Comparative Study of Poland, Turkey, and China, the use of mobile and desktop devices in e-commerce in the context of sustainability, in Poland, Turkey, and the People’s Republic of China are compared. The twelfth chapter, Shadow Information Technology for the Sustainable Facilitation of Knowledge Development at Universities, investigates the phenomenon of shadow information technology in the context of sustainable knowledge development and analyzes shadow information technology acceptance among university students. The thirteenth chapter, The Importance of Traditional and New Media in Encouraging Young Consumers’ Sustainable Behavior, determines the role of traditional and new media in encouraging environmentally sustainable behaviors among young consumers. In the last chapter of this part, the fourteenth chapter titled Automatic Hate Speech Detection Methods as a Tool Supporting a Sustainable Society and Economy, the authors demonstrate and confirm the thesis about the effectiveness of text mining in the automatic detection of hate speech on the Internet. This point of view is crucial for fostering a sustainable society and sustainable management of new media. Part 3. Sustainable Energy Development Driven by Emerging ICT Adoption. The third part of this book, consisting of four chapters, concentrates on the adoption of ICT in the energy sector to evolve it toward sustainability. The fifteenth chapter, The Impact of Information and Communication Technologies on Sustainable Development in the Energy Sector, shows the role of digitalization in the sustainable development of the energy sector at the international and domestic levels and detects to what extent digitalization is a necessary or important factor to ensure sustainable development. The sixteenth chapter, Exploring Socio-Technical Gaps in the Cybersecurity of Energy Informatics for Sustainability, shows how to respond to cyber threats in a socio-technical manner, helping to sustain an energy system. The seventeenth chapter, Employing Smart Metering Platforms in Energy-Efficient Behaviors, provides recent empirical findings and recommendations on the use of smart meters together with some enabling technologies, such as in-home displays that offer energy feedback in the context of successful behavioral change for end users. The final chapter in the book, the eighteenth chapter titled Social Motivators and Barriers to Participation in a Renewable Energy Community in Western Europe,

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examines the drivers of social acceptance of the renewable energy community concept in an empirical manner.

Who is this Book for? This book appeals to both researchers and practitioners, as it provides significant areas for research and practice related to the contribution of emerging ICT adoption to sustainability, and suggests important issues for programming and building sustainable development-driven emerging ICT adoption. The principal audiences of the book are academics and scientists in the fields of social sciences, business and management, finance and economics, public health, corporate social responsibility, and organizational studies who wish to combine a strong theoretical basis with world-class empirical evidence. This book is also dedicated to businesses and governments. It suggests the important issues for adopting emerging ICT to enhance sustainable development and achieve various kinds of sustainability. All readers may find answers to important contemporary questions such as: • What are the concepts, frameworks, models, and approaches to enhance sustainable development through the adoption of emerging ICT? • How can the adoption of emerging ICT influence sustainability? • How emerging ICT can be adopted to enhance sustainability? • What are the current practices and good cases of emerging ICT adoption for sustainability? • What are the factors influencing emerging ICT adoption to enhance sustainability? Ewa Ziemba Jarosław Wątróbski

Contents Acknowledgments Introduction

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Part 1: Theoretical Issues on Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability 1. Potential for a Process Framework to Guide the Implementation of Circular Economy Activities in Enterprises 3 Roisin Mullins, Sandra Dettmer, Ewa Ziemba and Monika Eisenbardt 2. The State of Research on Emerging Information and Communication Technologies for Sustainable Development 27 Arkadiusz Januszewski and Dariusz Żółtowski 3. Analysis of Frameworks for the Integration of Information and Communication Technology into Sustainability 50 Adam Sadowski and Beata Skowron-Grabowska 4. Mapping Areas of ICT Application for Sustainable Management 68 Justyna Szydłowska and Jakub Swacha 5. A Concept of a Sustainable Digital Healthcare System 87 Małgorzata Dymyt and Marta Wincewicz-Bosy 6. The Meta-Design Methodology and Process Adaptability for Sustainability Support 105 Anna Sołtysik-Piorunkiewicz and Stanisław Stanek 7. Pro-Environmental Engagement of ICT Enterprises in Poland as an Expression of Sustainable Development 119 Dorota Teneta-Skwiercz, Hanna Sikacz and Marta Lesiewska 8. The State of Research on Cognitive Technologies for Sustainable Business Processes 135 Marcin Hernes, Ewa Walaszczyk, Krzysztof Nowosielski and Agata Kozina Part 2: Empirical Approaches to Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability 9. The Role of Robotic Process Automation in Sustainable Human Resource Management Andrzej Sobczak

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Introduction

10. Sustainable E-commerce in the Perspective of SDGs and Online Marketplaces Dariusz Grabara 11. The Impact of Technical Aspects of E-commerce on Sustainability. Comparative Study of Poland, Turkey, and China Marek Zborowski, Witold Chmielarz, Jin Xuetao, Mesut Atasever and Justyna Szpakowska 12. Shadow Information Technology for the Sustainable Facilitation of Knowledge Development at Universities Małgorzata Pańkowska and Mariia Rizun 13. The Importance of Traditional and New Media in Encouraging Young Consumers’ Sustainable Behavior Agata Balińska, Ewa Jaska and Agnieszka Werenowska 14. Automatic Hate Speech Detection Methods as a Tool Supporting a Sustainable Society and Economy Jędrzej Wieczorkowski and Aleksandra Suwińska

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192

211

229

242

Part 3: Sustainable Energy Development Driven by Emerging ICT Adoption 15. The Impact of Information and Communication Technologies on Sustainable Development in the Energy Sector Beata Stępień and Justyna Światowiec-Szczepańska 16. Exploring Socio-technical Gaps in the Cybersecurity of Energy Informatics for Sustainability Duong Dang and Tero Vartiainen 17. Employing Smart Metering Platforms in Energy-Efficient Behaviors Anna Kowalska-Pyzalska 18. Social Motivators and Barriers to Participation in a Renewable Energy Community in Western Europe Ewa Neska

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288 305

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Index

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About the Editors

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Part 1 Theoretical Issues on Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability

CHAPTER

1

Potential for a Process Framework to Guide the Implementation of Circular Economy Activities in Enterprises Roisin Mullins1*, Sandra Dettmer2, Ewa Ziemba 3 and Monika Eisenbardt 3 1

2 3

Institute of Management and Health, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Wales; [email protected] School of Management, Swansea University, Wales; [email protected] University of Economics in Katowice, Poland; [email protected]; [email protected]

Introduction The linear economy is generally stated as a ‘take, make and dispose’ (Stahel 2016; Jørgensen and Pedersen 2018) practice, based on the continuing extraction and waste of scarce resources. A consequence of following a linear economy results in an imbalance in the functioning of Earth’s systems and improper processing and consumption of raw materials. Such concerns give rise to adopting a circular economy (CE) strategy (Esposito et al. 2018) with the introduction of new business practices and models (Osterwalder and Pigneur 2010) to address the environmental crisis and respond to changed consumer demands. The CE changes practices and strategies to capture value from the materials and take responsibility for their end-of-life environmental impact. A choice of business frameworks are in use but none take a position as a confirmed framework of choice to influence the CE path; there are also numerous choices of measurement tools, indicators, and monitoring frameworks. However, the Process Classification Framework (PCF) developed by the American Productivity and Quality Center (APQC) in the early 1990s offers the potential for aligning CE strategic activity to business operating processes within and across the business and extended supply chain. The passage to a circular economy may be costly and risky, with numerous barriers: lack of knowledge and experience, competing priorities, limited industry connectivity, lack of pricing strategy, and inconsistent policy are listed as major *Corresponding author: [email protected]

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Theoretical Issues on Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability

barriers, with enterprises needing skilled labor and workforce training on CE strategy and process management. This may be offset by opportunities (Porter and Kramer 2011) for CE business practice, such as developing innovative business models, co-creating with consumers, and integrating Industry 4.0 technologies to improve knowledge sharing (Jørgensen and Pedersen 2018), automation, flexibility, sustainable improvement in resource efficiency and environmental performance, value creation in supply chains (Blunck and Werthmann 2017; Kalmykova et al. 2018), for the improvement of provenance, durability of products, and traceability in supply-chain operations. Digital technologies as summarized in Industry 4.0 are seen as essential stepping stones in the transition to a CE as they capture the information flow across individual business processes (Kristoffersen 2020). The term “Industry 4.0” was discussed at the Hannover Fair in Germany in 2011. It generally refers to increased automation, digitization, and real-time connectivity of systems, services, people, and things leading to process improvements. While the term was initially used in reference to the manufacturing sector, SMART manufacturing, it has developed into ancillary industries in the supply chain to enable value creation, improved production processes, alongside mass customization, and improved customer relationship management (PwC 2016). The Industry 4.0 technologies currently in use include artificial neural networks, automation, big data, blockchain, convolutional neural networks, deep learning (DL), digitalization, internet of things (IoT), machine learning, additive manufacturing, fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) systems, smart factory (Hennemann Hilario da Silva and Sehnem 2022), and additional technologies referred to by IBM such as cloud computing, edge computing, cybersecurity, and digital twins. Research by PwC (2016) states that enterprises are placing central importance on Industry 4.0 in their strategic and research levels with companies “combining advanced connectivity and advanced automation, cloud computing, sensors and 3D printing, connected capability, computer-powered processes, intelligent algorithms, and IoT services to transform their businesses.” In response, Khan et al. (2021) support the transformative effect of Industry 4.0 to facilitative CE practices, and innovation-led processes. Concerns for the environment have resulted in many studies that address the interaction or interfaces between CE and Industry 4.0; research by da Silva and Sehnem (2022) focuses on the exploration of strategies to move toward sustainability and the slowing down of environmental deterioration from a producer as well as consumer perspective through waste minimization and reduced energy consumption (Yadav et al. 2020). Although the number of industry-specific case studies and conceptual research on the CE is vast and growing, the role of Industry 4.0 as an enabler toward practical implementation of CE activities in enterprises through the application of frameworks such as the APQC’s Process Frameworks is unexplored (Kristoffersen 2020). Therefore, this chapter addresses this gap by investigating whether enterprise operating processes may be aligned to the four inner loops of the CE, named the four Rs (4 Rs), along with attention to the choice of frameworks currently in use that offer the potential to improve understanding of CE activities and align to operational processes implementation.

Potential for a Process Framework to Guide the Implementation...

5

Circular Economy (CE) The CE is not an entirely new idea, and the circularity in the use and maintenance of products as well as the efficient use of resources was ingrained in people’s behavior, especially before the Industrial Revolution and the rise of consumerism (Pearce and Turner 1990). At that time, it was possible to fix broken items as they were repairable; it was socially acceptable to use mended products, from cars to clothes, and the skills to carry out these necessary repairs were widely available in society. We are now confronted not only with built-in obsolescence in products that make things unrepairable but with a constant need to upgrade products to the latest version (Charter 2018). This has significantly reduced the shelf life of most but especially electronic items. Furthermore, skills have already been lost in society and even when things are repairable, the desire to mend is thwarted by unavailable craftsmanship. The model of the CE does not mean reverting to pre-industrial times but depicts it as a wider concept that provides solutions to business, society, and the environment alike. Within the CE concept, the role of business and consumers changes as both parties must take on greater responsibility. The purpose of organizations has been discussed widely in academia and rationales have changed from the profit maxim to the greater good for society, which is often reflected in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) statements published on company websites (Khan et al. 2016). The proposed justification in this chapter does not contradict these but suggests organizations identify and focus on the original business case. Enterprises exist as they serve a purpose, provide solutions to a problem, or fill a gap in the market. Instead of artificially inflating demand for new versions of the same product, organizations should focus on the service provision within CE through repair, reuse, remanufacture, and if everything fails, recycling services. The 4Rs model (repair, reuse, remanufacture, and recycle) as defined by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF 2013) as such requires organizations to go beyond the boundaries and to span across supply chains and industry sectors (PwC 2018). By adopting such practices, organizations within the CE environment maintain the value of resources in use for as long as possible. Therefore, the focus shifts from value creation for customers—as taught through concepts such as the value chain analysis by Porter (2011)—to the importance of preserving the value of resources and materials. There is considerable support that sustainability and CE are not addressing similar features, with the former emphasizing societal, environmental, and economic goals. CE, however, is more specifically concerned with addressing economic imperatives, defining growth for the benefit of society, and addressing this through a closed-loop system (Rashid et al. 2013). Enterprises have largely made a move to sustainable business practices and have set targets to address sustainable development goals and corporate responsibility, and yet many of these enterprises are considerably slower in the transition to a CE with little consideration to the value of materials in use in the process stages. The literature on CE is growing at a fast pace, accompanied by many diagrammatic depictions of CE. However, there remains an ongoing debate on a satisfactory definition of CE. Kirchherr et al. (2017) even reported some 117 definitions of CE, further illustrating the lack of consensus in the field. There are

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numerous explanations of CE including various taxonomies, loops, and strategies, with some authors referring to 4Rs, 6Rs, or even 9Rs (Potting et al. 2017). As Potting (2017) illustrates, the value of maintaining loops and opportunities is defined through narrow strategies ranging from more intense material usage to a complete product redesign. The first diagrammatic depiction of CE was suggested by Stahel (1982), referring to reuse, repair, reconditioning, and recycling, which more recently feature in the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF 2013) “butterfly” diagram and are referred to as the “4R loops” or “4Rs.” As early as 1982, Stahel’s paper considered processes whereby the 4Rs could be understood by business sectors. To advance practice and process change enabled by 4Rs thinking could lead to ways to minimize wasteful depletion of valuable resources, while keeping products and materials in use for longer, with early designing out of waste processes and designing out of pollution as well as regeneration of natural systems. However, despite such extensive publications on wide-ranging areas of CE influence and impact, there is a lack of clarity for businesses on how to address CE in practice. The published research presents conceptual and normative frameworks, but these tend not to be something enterprises can use and implement in their enterprise. While Lewandowski (2016) stresses that current business model frameworks can be used in parts to embed the circular economy, there are no comprehensive structures that can be applied to all business processes and across industries. Consequently, enterprises have not initiated an early transfer to CE; while there is no one encompassing definition agreed upon across continents, individual countries place a different emphasis on characteristics, associated metrics, and indicators for assessment and benchmarking. This chapter considers the EMF (2013) 4Rs from their CE systems diagram and as stated in Kirchherr et al. (2017), it “is argued to be the one with most traction these days,” and in our study the most suitable approach for assessing the status of CE across enterprises. The 4Rs stated are repair (maintain/prolong), reuse/redistribute, refurbish/remanufacture, and recycle. The CE systems diagram (EMF 2013) shows 4Rs. Most value is maintained in these very small loops of repair, reuse, and refurbishment (Wieser and Tröger 2018), as these demand fewer resources and energy and tend to be more economically useful than conventional recycling, where enterprises endeavor to keep the product in use and thus most value is maintained. Clearly, the value is lost as the circle becomes wider. Importantly, with recycling, most of the value is lost in this loop. Therefore, the time the materials or resources spend within the inner circles should be maximized in order to increase the value of the resource and to slow the depletion of natural resources. In contrast to a top-down approach, this chapter suggests starting with the identification of individual circular processes within organizations and drawing on already well-established and used frameworks known to businesses from performance management to supply-chain models. As organizations are unique in their resources and capabilities, they need a robust and practice-based framework that allows them to quickly identify CE opportunities.

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7

Business Processes and Process Frameworks Business Processes Definition The concept of business processes is concerned with how tasks associated with functional business areas are communicated effectively and efficiently within and across enterprises that act as suppliers in a larger supply chain or web of systems. The act of organizing and structuring tasks termed as ‘processes’ coincides with the introduction of ICT systems in organizations during the 1980s and 90s and Hammer and Champy (1993), and Davenport (1993) have made significant contributions to the field. The authors share the rationale for the transactional perspective on business process management as it enhances the efficiency and effectiveness of operations and structures relationships between organizations with a clear focus on the customer. While Hammer and Champy (1993) emphasize the need to meet customer expectations for each transaction, Davenport concentrates on the mutual fulfillment of longer-term promises. Both approaches are highly relevant in terms of CE implementation as the CE model requires more frequent interactions between the customers and organizations and also needs to be embedded in the longer-term strategy.

Business Processes Frameworks APQC Framework While enterprises adjust their internal processes, business models, and value proposition to utilize the capacity of Industry 4.0 technologies to improve their competitive position and efficient use of data and information (Zawadzki and Żywicki 2016), they also utilize technology to support changes in the external environment and promote innovation to better respond to economic, social, and environmental drivers of change. As enterprises make the transition to CE, the need to establish process frameworks to aid circular business processes is vital to improving knowledge and information sharing. Several frameworks offer practical considerations as opposed to a choice of management frameworks that provide classifications of primary “core” and secondary “supportive” processes (Aguilar-Saven 2004; Derkacz et al. 2021). These practicebased frameworks include the Process Classification Framework (PCF), SupplyChain Operations References (SCOR), and Global Supply-Chain Forum (GSCF). The PCF is a generic framework, co-developed in 1992, by Global Best Practices and the International Benchmarking Clearinghouse of the American Productivity and Quality Center (APQC 2022). The SCOR and the GSCF frameworks are two wellrecognized supply-chain management frameworks. The level of detail and universal business process information provided by the PCF, SCOR, and GSCF provide the baseline and common language to explore the overarching research question of this study i.e., can existing business frameworks, such as the PCF, SCOR, and GSCF be used to consistently map CE activities in organizations from different industries? Furthermore, could these frameworks be

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Theoretical Issues on Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability

adapted or used by enterprises to design, develop, and implement CE activities across different industries? The selection of the APQC PCF is made due to it consisting of “a taxonomy of cross-functional business processes to allow for the objective comparison of organizational performance within and among organizations” (APQC 2022; Ziemba et al. 2019). Furthermore, it is one of the most used business frameworks and reflects current developments as it has been regularly updated since its inception in 1992. The PCF version 7.3 (2022) framework contains six operating processes and seven management processes. As detailed in Table 1, the PCF states common terminology to name, organize, and map key processes performed in an enterprise, and the process levels are grouped hierarchically. It is used to aid enterprises to rethink their process development from a horizontal rather than a vertical view. It is robust and used by enterprises to address their process and performance benchmarking. It consists of 13 enterprise-wide processes, consisting of operating processes and management processes, and was updated in 2022. The purpose is to address cross-industry processes and benchmark against other global enterprises; yet, it does not address all processes. Table 1. Process Classification Framework (PCF) 1.0

Develop Vision and Strategy

2.0

Develop and Manage Products and Services

3.0

Market and Sell Products and Services

4.0

Manage Supply Chain for Physical Products

5.0

Deliver Services

6.0

Manage Customer Service

7.0

Develop and Manage Human Capital

8.0

Manage Information Technology (IT)

9.0

Manage Financial Resources

10.0

Acquire, Construct, and Manage Assets

11.0

Manage Enterprise Risk, Compliance, Remediation, and Resiliency

12.0

Manage External Relationships

13.0

Develop and Manage Business Capabilities

Operating Processes (Business Process, BP)

Management Processes

Source: APQC Process Classification Framework. Version 7.3.0. Houston: APQC 2019.

While the PCF focuses on intra-organizational processes, supply-chain management frameworks recognize the need for the integration of business processes between enterprises (Lambert et al. 2005). Lambert provides a comprehensive study of supply-chain process frameworks stating four specific criteria, which are considered to be essential for the sustainability of organizations. These criteria can be fundamental to addressing process frameworks aligned with CE loops. The

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GSCF framework consists of eight supply-chain management processes with the two central relationship management processes i.e., customer relationship management and customer service management forming the critical links through which the remaining six processes are organized. GSCF Framework The GSCF framework (Lambert et al. 2005) considers the structures and relationships required to meet the needs of clients, functions, and customers. These include “customer relationship management” (Croxton et al. 2001), “customer service management” (Bolumole et al. 2003), “demand management” (Croxton et al. 2002), “order fulfillment” (Croxton 2003), “manufacturing flow management” (Goldsby and García-Dastugue 2003), “supplier relationship management” (Croxton et al. 2001), “product development and commercialization” (Rogers et al. 2004), and the final supply-chain management process is concerned with “returns management” (Rogers et al. 2002). SCOR Framework The SCOR Framework consists of five SCOR processes as summarized below (Supply-Chain Council 2003): 1. Plan demand and supply such as sourcing, production, and delivery. 2. Source activities related to procuring goods and services. 3. Make activities related to transforming goods into a finished product that confirm steps 1 and 2 planning and demand. 4. Deliver activities relate to providing the finished goods and relate to steps 1–3 and include order, transportation, and distribution management. 5. Return activities relate to returning or receiving returned products and align with customer support. The SCOR and GSCF have been explained extensively by Lambert et al. (2005) using a set of four criteria they derived to assess process-orientated supply-chain frameworks. Applying the four criteria to the PCF framework indicates possible weaknesses in wider supply chains, in particular the lack of inter-connectedness and lack of customer relationship focus. The following four criteria are used to summarize the three chosen frameworks introduced by Lambert et al. (2005): 1. Scope: Does the framework support the corporate strategy? This question is important as it determines organizational success as well as resource allocation at the business unit level. Do functional activities respond to market-driven product demands? 2. Intra-company connectedness: Are departments formally or informally connected, for instance through employees? The successful conduct of business processes relies on inter-connectedness across corporate functions and can be applied to both transactional efficiency and relationship management. It relies on information dissemination across corporate functions or on cross-functional integration.

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Theoretical Issues on Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability

3. Inter-company connectedness: Does management differentiate between longterm relationships and transactional short-term relationships between the enterprise and customers or suppliers, respectively? And is relevant support available? 4. Drivers of value generation: Which of the activities have an impact on value generation? More specifically, which drivers will lead to increasing income streams, decreasing operational costs, working capital, or increasing efficiency? In contrast to the GSCF and SCOR framework, the PCF framework shows a greater level of detail as it differentiates between 13 processes of which six are operational processes (BP1 to BP6; see Table 1). There is little focus on relationship management in contrast to the GSCF framework in which this process is central and coordinates all remaining six processes. There is no focus on the intra-company connectedness in the PCF; instead, hierarchical cross-industry activities are presented individually without references to potential intra-company connections. The PCF is driven by benchmarking goals and assesses performance efficiency. This approach corresponds more to SCOR with transactional efficiency and less with the relationship management approach followed by GSCF. Additionally, there is a marked difference between the three models in terms of drivers of value generation. Built on comparing the three frameworks, PCF has been selected to assess CE engagement status across enterprises. As Blomsma et al. (2022) ascertain, CE literature focuses on the development and discussion of normative and conceptual frameworks but offers no practical guidelines for organizations to embrace and adopt circularity. Therefore, a focus on internal processes benchmarking using the PCF is seen as a good base for the initial analysis of CE implementation opportunities and the potential design and development of an applied framework.

Description of Enterprise Study A survey was conducted in 2019 to assess the status of sustainability in international enterprises operating in the UK business sectors. The survey was revisited in 2022 to reassess their CE status.

Research Model The research model consisted of a number of stages to ensure a thorough research design is presented in Figure 1. The following eight steps provide a summary of the research process: 1. Reviewed the current literature on CE to identify the gaps in enterprise management practice. 2. A group of 100 students with research interest in the CE were selected from the MBA course following the concept of purposive sampling (Creswell 2013) as they had a clear understanding of the aims of the study, and this sample size was deemed to be homogenous and provides additional validity (Levy and Ellis 2011).

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Figure 1. The research model illustration

3. Introduced students to the randomized sampling approach and the research task. Randomly listed 30 enterprises from which they have made purchases in the last five years and completed an Excel table (Table 2). The survey was designed with simplicity in mind to ensure the repeatability of results and consisted of five sections: enterprise information, sustainability, CE, business process, and Industry 4.0 evidence. 4. The lists of companies were collated and checked for consistency in the data recorded, and duplicated enterprise records were deleted to ensure data validity, reliability, and consistency (Saunders et al. 2003). 5. The full data samples were collected over a month, the separate lists were collated and duplicated cases were checked for consistent responses, and duplicated enterprises and associated records were removed. 6. The final data set consisted of 333 enterprise records. 7. The data set consisted of 16 industry sectors to show a good representation of sectors across the study with a minimum of 2–151 enterprises reported in the sectors.

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Theoretical Issues on Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability

8. The data were analyzed using IBM SPSS version 28.0.1.0 and data summaries and graphs were reported for interpretation. Table 2. Survey areas Enterprise Information

Company Name

Enterprise Information

Number of Employees

Enterprise Information

Company Size (Small 250–500, Large 500– 1,000; Mega >1,000)

Enterprise Information

Industry Sector: Broad Version

Enterprise Information

Industry Sector: [SICCODES]

Sustainability

Do They Have a Sustainability Statement (Yes/No); Link Evidence

CE

Do They Have a CE Statement (Yes/No); Link Evidence

Sustainability

Evidence of Sustainability Areas; Focus/Type (Yes/No); Link Evidence

CE

If Yes to CE Statement, Does it Evidence Repair; Link evidence

CE

If Yes to CE Statement, Does it Evidence Reuse/Redistribute; Link evidence

CE

If Yes to CE Statement, Does it Evidence Refurbish/ Remanufacture; Link Evidence

CE

If Yes to CE Statement, Does it Evidence Recycle; Link evidence

CE and Business Process

Does the CE Statement Relate to Any of the Specific Business Processes? Yes/No

Business Process

If Yes, State Which Processes (BP1, BP2, BP3, BP4, BP5, and BP6); Link Evidence for Each Process Captured

Business Process

Evidence of the Business Process Statement on the Website; Include “Their Actual Statements” for (BP, BP2, BP3, BP4, BP5, and BP6)

Industry 4.0

Evidence of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) Focus (Yes/No); Link Evidence

Industry 4.0

State I4.0 Technologies; Link Evidence

The enterprises were selected by MBA students using the random selection of large-size global enterprises (OECD 2010) known to them from making a previous purchase. The data set consisted of 333 enterprises after the cleaning and removal of duplicate enterprises. The survey was revisited in 2022 and updated with additional questions to reassess the enterprise websites for evidence of CE engagement and their alignment to operating processes, in particular six operating processes organized in the PCF framework. Enterprise websites were assessed for the following sustainability keywords that included CSR, sustainable development goals, ethics, human rights, human impact, natural resources, biodiversity, social impact, environmentalism, renewable energy, and sharing. The CE category search keywords included reduce, rethink, refuse, repair, reuse, renovate, refurbish, remanufacture, repurpose, recycle, and recover. While, Industry 4.0-related keywords included artificial neural networks, automation, big

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Potential for a Process Framework to Guide the Implementation...

data, blockchain, convolutional neural networks, dlearning (DL), digitalization, IoT, machine learning, additive manufacturing, fuzzy DEMATEL systems, smart factory, digital twin, and other (cloud, robotics, and virtual reality). The search was executed through a pairwise query, taking one keyword from each category (CE and Industry 4.0) at a time. The survey was sorted by industry according to the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC 2007). This established framework is well accepted and used in research due to its consistency and uniformity. Table 3 displays the number of recorded enterprises per industry sector. In manufacturing (C), 95% of enterprises are engaged in sustainability, whereas less than half, 46%, show a commitment to CE activities. In general, the same pattern applies to the service sector; the higher level of engagement in terms of sustainability holds for all industries (D-S), but more enterprises in wholesale and retail trade (G) as well as in information and communication (J) demonstrate CE engagement compared to no CE involvement. Table 3. Enterprises sorted by SIC (2007) code and CE vs. Sustainability Engagement (Sus) CE

No. CE

Sus

No. Sus

A

Industry Classification SIC (2007) Agriculture, forestry, and fishing

0

1

1

0

C

Manufacturing

44

51

90

5

D/E

Electricity, gas, water supply, and sewerage

4

9

13

0

F

Construction

1

1

1

1

G

Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles

77

56

110

23

H

Transport and storage

5

16

21

0

I

Accommodation and food service activities

0

5

3

2

J

Information and communication

14

10

21

3

K

Financial and insurance activities

3

10

10

3

O

Public administration and defense

1

0

1

0

P

Education

0

2

2

0

Q

Human health and social work activities

2

2

4

0

R

Arts, entertainment, and recreation

4

7

11

0

S

Other services

1

7

8

0

156

177

296

37

Total number of enterprises

Four research propositions were surveyed. RQ: Can organizations use the APQC PFC framework to identify CE activities which then enables them to transfer from linear to CE business processes? This research question can be further split into four distinct research propositions: Proposition 1: Enterprises engage in CE activities in any of the four main loops (Rs) i.e., repair (1), reuse/redistribute (2), refurbishment/remanufacture (3), and recycle (4).

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Theoretical Issues on Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability Proposition 2: Enterprises are associated with CE activities for each of the APQC operating processes stages (stages BP1-BP6). Proposition 3: There is evidence of CE loops in all surveyed enterprises. Proposition 4: There is reported evidence of a link between CE processes and Industry 4.0 within the surveyed enterprises.

Enterprises Engagement in CE and Sustainability The following graphs present the condensed data to address the above propositions and summarize the enterprise engagement in the CE versus sustainability more generally before analyzing the specific circular loop and business process (BP) activities in further detail. Figure 2 displays a wide gap between enterprises engaged in wider sustainability activities and particular CE activities. The results illustrate 156 (47%) of the selected enterprises engage in CE activities and 296 (89%) in sustainability activities. This suggests almost all enterprises claim to be involved in sustainability activities, while only 47% of the surveyed enterprises refer to CE activities on their website. These results are almost identical to a 2018 report from PwC on the top 100 Global enterprises, where their study found only 50% of the surveyed companies publishing CE statements. In contrast to their results, our data set was larger, with 333 global enterprises sampled; yet, four years later, the results depict little change. This result may be explained by the fact that the CE concept is lacking in developing the social dimension. While it may broadly support sustainability, the social aspects which enterprises have developed in recent times tend to be absent in CE as mentioned in Geissdoerfer et al. (2018). Similarly, the results confirm that CE is not a strategic priority of enterprises, it is not on their radar and may not be identified easily on existing process frameworks. In terms of scope criterion, it can be deduced that none of the current frameworks relate process-level activities to

Figure 2. Circular Economy (CE) engagement vs. Sustainability (Sus) engagement

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specifically focus on how to embed CE into the corporate strategy. The scope of the frameworks proves inadequate with respect to sharpening CE implementation in early-stage resource allocation and meeting cross-market-driven product demands. The 333 enterprise website statements were analyzed to record enterprises’ intention to do i.e., record statements that support direct engagement in the 4 R loops rather than record evidence of actual proof engaging in CE. The results displayed in Figure 3 indicate that most CE engagement is in the recycling loop, with few enterprises engaging in the repair loop. Repair is the important loop in the CE, as it maintains most of the value. Yet, it is the least used or stated loop in the enterprise CE statements. Recycling is relatively easy for enterprises as it is mainly outsourced, but repair is arguably more complex and considerably reliant on process design changes internally as well as supporting supply-chain inter-connectedness. Enterprises have the tools to design products, therefore they have the machinery to work at the inner loops. In this sense, Proposition 1 has been fully confirmed as enterprises show engagement in any of the CE loops. However, the results reveal the opposite actions to the CE butterfly where value is maintained in the inner loops while most of the value of the resource and product is lost in the recycling loop. This demonstrates where enterprises lack the knowledge and skills to seek opportunities, such as devising new business models to preserve the value of resources. Interestingly, only one enterprise statement was concerned with all 4 loops, an illustration that enterprises do not understand the concept of CE. The process frameworks arguably do not specifically denote which activity levels have an impact on the value associated with the 4 loops, which are attached to income streams, decreasing operational costs or working capital, or increasing efficiency. This illustrates that enterprises do not understand the concept of CE, with missed opportunities to engage in all loops to preserve drivers of value creation and value generation.

Figure 3. 4 Rs associated with enterprise CE engagement

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Theoretical Issues on Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability

The enterprise websites were analyzed to determine if they reported CE activities that align with the PCF operating processes. Process activity related to CE loops was identified in all business processes i.e., BP1 to BP6 and summarized in Figure 4. More specifically, the exercise detected that 47% of all enterprises seem to have a specific plan in terms of their respective CE activities (BP1) and were providing a CE statement. BP2, which develops and manages products and services, was the second most recorded section with 128 enterprises (80%). Simultaneously, it covers the most fundamental processes that are relevant to support changes to lifecycle development. BP3, BP4, BP5, and BP6 confirm less than 10% activity for each suggesting little attention to managing the supply chain or service delivery in a different way using innovative systems. The BP1 statements affirm a standalone position with little connection to the following operating process stages. The lack of cross-process activity suggests low inter-company and intra-company connectedness and missed opportunities that may result in a lack of consistent internal communication. An example of this would be where the marketing employees and function are not aware of the CE emphasis and do not know how to direct the process to address CE and evidence a more holistic approach to engage with suppliers and customers. These findings reveal enterprises do not necessarily formulate a CE strategy that transcends into their business operations. However, looking at individual processes within the business demonstrates that some activities are circular. This raises the question of whether enterprises are unaware of the circular approach and these activities simply happen to align with circular, or if organizations lack a framework to consistently apply CE across different processes, therefore refraining to incorporate it into their business purpose (Lewandowski 2016). In this respect, Proposition 2 has not been fully confirmed as not all enterprises have engaged in all six business processes. Using SICCODES (EU standard codes and categories) the enterprises were categorized according to their main business activity. The seven main industries

Figure 4. Business processes associated with enterprise CE loops

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based on the number of observations are reported in Figure 5. As expected, sustainability exceeds CE in each of the seven sectors, but the smallest difference is recorded in wholesale and retail (18%) and in the information and communication (20%) sectors. This is difficult to explain but the manufacturing sector may be less agile in changing processes compared to sectors such as the wholesale, retail, and information and communication sectors which require further research. In conclusion, Proposition 3 has not been fully confirmed as not all enterprises have engaged in all four CE loops.

Figure 5. Enterprise sectors’ engagement in CE loops

The CE opportunities will require new business models. For example, to design out current or underused functions and use reverse logistics to increase the life of products, thereby maintaining the materials for a longer period, the value in their materials, and the overall value derived from them, so that fewer materials end up as waste. If we interpret CE as a step up from sustainability in terms of specific actions required by enterprises to have a positive environmental impact, the manufacturing industry falls behind other sectors, most notably the wholesale and retail trade or ICT sector. Following the further assumption that manufacturing derives its business mainly through B2B in contrast to either retail or ICT, it is possible to link the greater CE engagements and efforts to the demand driven by the end customer (Lewandowski 2016). It remains to be seen how much of the “trickle-down” effect remains further down the supply chain. This effect has already been analyzed in terms of the supply chain and sustainability and researchers have questioned to what extent the suppliers of sustainable organizations are following sustainable practices themselves (Patil et al. 2022). Whereas Seuring and Müller (2008) define sustainable supply-chain management as “the management of material, information, and capital flows, as well as cooperation among companies along the supply chain while taking goals from all three dimensions of sustainable development into account,” a similar notion does not yet exist for the CE.

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Theoretical Issues on Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability

Table 4 summarizes that out of 333 analyzed organizations, there is evidence of Industry 4.0 engagement in 121 enterprises. The enterprises which referred to CE activities or engagement on their websites were also more likely to mention Industry 4.0 or make a specific reference to one of the Industry 4.0 technologies. “Big data” is referred to by 95 enterprises and we found a link to “automation” in 79 organizations, followed by 72 for “smart factory.” As highlighted in the table, a similar pattern exists for the industries manufacturing (C), (G), and (H). Furthermore, we can also observe a lower Industry 4.0 activity in the industries (J), (K), (R), and (S). Figure 6 summarizes the differences between Industry 4.0 engagement between CE and non-CE enterprises. We record a positive gap between CE and non-CE enterprises which supports Proposition 4 i.e., enterprises that acknowledge or actively practice CE practices also record a higher awareness or link to either Industry 4.0 or any of the associated technologies. This applies to all recorded specifications, except for “convolutional neural networks” which results in a negative figure of 1, meaning this Industry 4.0 specification was referred to more often in enterprises engaging in sustainability (3 enterprises) rather than CE (2 enterprises). In line with the above analysis, “big data,” “artificial neural networks,” “IoT,” and “machine learning” stand out with large differences between CE and non-CE organizations. Additionally, less than 5 of the CE companies made a specific connection to how their Industry 4.0 technologies can positively impact their CE processes. Table 4. Engagement of all organizations (CE and non-CE organizations) in Industry 4.0 ALL

Industry SIC Codes All

C

G

H

J

K

R

S

Industry 4.0

121

66

36

3

13

2

1

0

Artificial Neural Networks

65

25

20

1

11

8

0

0

Automation

79

48

23

0

4

4

0

0

Big Data

95

49

32

1

6

6

1

0

Blockchain

13

7

2

0

1

2

1

0

Convolutional Neural Networks

5

2

0

0

1

2

0

0

Deep Learning

10

3

1

1

4

1

0

0

Digitization

64

26

25

1

6

4

1

0

IoT

40

20

13

1

5

0

1

0

Machine Learning

48

12

16

2

9

8

1

0

Additive Manufacturing

32

23

8

1

0

0

0

0

Fuzzy DEMATEL Systems

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

Smart Factory

72

48

17

1

6

0

0

0

Digital Twins

13

7

5

0

1

0

0

0

Other

1

0

0

0

0

1

0

0

Potential for a Process Framework to Guide the Implementation...

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Figure 6. Difference in Industry 4.0 engagement between CE and non-CE organizations

Conceptual Model of Business Process Frameworks, Industry 4.0, and CE Associations Industry sectors as identified above need to address technology barriers and seek enablers that optimize processes by embedding Industry 4.0 technologies in CE activities to facilitate repair and reuse, as well as allow the reintegration of processes, machinery, and products (Rajput and Singh 2019). The connection between process, CE and Industry 4.0 needs to be explored and a number of authors have proposed conceptual frameworks to address where CE and Industry 4.0 are integrated (Lu et al. 2022; Khan et al. 2021) in supply chains to enhance organizational performance. The conceptual framework proposed by Lu et al. (2022) also includes a roadmap and considers a dynamic capabilities view of the drivers and barriers to managing operational excellence in Industry 4.0 CE supply chains for sustainable competitive advantage. The conceptual framework proposed by Khan et al. (2021) considers one aspect of Industry 4.0, namely blockchain, and the relationship to three CE practices: circular purchasing, recycling and remanufacturing, circular design, and their relationship with firm performance. Their findings from 404 firms across China and Pakistan indicate that blockchain has “an effective role in implementing circular economy practices to spur economic and environmental performance” (Khan et al. 2021). While the considerations are mainly on CE procurement processes, the findings are a useful indicator of technology developments that may improve the reconfiguration of additional operating processes. However, there is a lack of research studies that explore the antecedents to organization performance through associations of CE factors, Industry 4.0 technologies, and operating processes. Therefore, our findings displayed in Figure 7 lead to a new conceptual model to gain process insights by investigating the nature and choice of CE practice and the influence of processes facilitated by the choices of Industry 4.0 technologies in global enterprises. Our findings indicated that enterprises which make a reference to CE on their website are also more likely to relate to Industry 4.0 and these enterprises may be

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Theoretical Issues on Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability

Figure 7. Conceptual model to test process frameworks, Industry 4.0, and CE associations

regarded as the “pioneers,” as they have accepted that a change is needed to transform organizations into more environmentally responsible institutions. Such thinking is accompanied by a more forward approach in terms of embracing new technologies as found in Industry 4.0. Furthermore, these technologies could allow enterprises to be active in wider CE practices.

Opportunities Enterprises that design new business models with a whole-system perspective on resource use, incorporate closed supply chains, regenerative design, and embed emerging digital technologies into their processes will see opportunities in the CE (Lewandowski 2016). Governments have a role to direct enterprises to transition to CE and support them to identify CE opportunities and implement them in any enterprise independent of a specific industry. Clearly, enterprises need to have a CE statement and strategy, similar to organizations having a CSR statement. There are opportunities to be realized in moving away from competition to co-opetition as an alternative business model (Mirzabeiki and Sarpong 2021). Importantly, it is an approach and path to follow to differentiate and identify CE as a competitive advantage. The results revealed that less than half of the surveyed organizations (48%) mention CE as part of their strategy. This is in stark contrast to, for instance, statements concerning the CSR approach which are clearly stated on the companies’ websites; the results obtained in this study confirm this with 89% referring to sustainability. The greater availability and especially visibility of CSR is largely driven by customer expectations and choice. Educated customers not only seek product-specific information but also want to learn about companies’ attitudes, behaviors, and policies with respect to ethical business which can encompass human rights issues but also sustainable sourcing and manufacturing processes (Yu 2022). CE activities within organizations should not be hidden within the sustainability efforts of an organization but treated as a separate approach to conducting business. Especially now enterprises in CE should use the first mover advantage to benefit from a competitive advantage as they use the alternative business model to differentiate from competitors. Furthermore, moving away from a linear to a circular business requires networking within and between businesses, businesses and customers, and businesses and suppliers. As already emphasized in the supply chain management

Potential for a Process Framework to Guide the Implementation...

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literature, there should be a clear focus and emphasis on establishing, managing, and maintaining good relationships. Additional benefits and opportunities from moving away from competition to co-opetition as an alternative business strategy have been emphasized widely in the relevant literature especially to address inter-organizational dynamics (Dagnino 2007).

Barriers There are many barriers for enterprises to disengage in circularity and these barriers are well documented in the literature. Ekins et al. (2019) refer to internal barriers that include the lack of a global definition of CE, perceived high costs, lack of benchmarks, and lack of knowledge and expertise identified as a knowledge gap. External barriers include supply-chain constraints, inconsistent policies, lack of technologies, and lack of motivation to remove the barriers while there are few government incentives for CE. Changes to internal processes and supply-chain processes can be enabled by following structured frameworks, and addressing some of the barriers to knowledge acquisition across business functions and knowledge sharing within the enterprise and across the supply chain (Mangers 2021). The study, however, confirmed that current process frameworks partially attend to CE where the specific language (4 Rs) and terms of reference and practice of CE are only scantly referred to in the process levels.

Process The GCSF and SCOR frameworks (Lambert 2005) are concerned with the wider supply chain and provide concise approaches to the integration of enterprise functions or information sharing, which may enable processes aligned to engagement in CE. Yet enterprises need a starting point, prior to wider supply-chain activity, to drive internal process changes that facilitate a transition to internal CE strategy, and the PCF appears to offer potential in CE process implementation. The PCF process levels mention characteristics of sustainability and CE; in some cases using the same names as seen in the EMF (2013) CE 4 loops, such as repair, reuse, remanufacture, and recycle. A concern for CE is the lack of attention to it at this primary process stage, BP1. For example, BP1 clearly states the following process level, 1.2.2.8 “develop sustainability strategy,” yet there is no similar separate statement to “develop circular economy strategy” which would be necessary as a BP1 process level statement to ensure it is included as a defined strategy. Other PCF statements such as 1.2.6.2 “establish baseline metrics” could be considered too vague, as there are about 13 different indicators and measures of CE. The notes would need to clearly reflect the choice of indicators and metrics valid for use internally and externally to the enterprise. There are further statements that focus more closely on CE engagement; the BP2, PCF 2.3.1.5 statement “provide warranty-related recommendations” should include notes on the recent change to “right to repair,” global movement and current policy changes and regulations currently under discussion in the EU (Šajn 2022). Here, manufacturers no longer have the sole rights to product repair, opening up options for consumers for wider CE repair loop considerations, with emphasis on

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Theoretical Issues on Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability

the durability of products and types of product obsolescence (Šajn 2022). While the BP3, PCF level 3.3.7 statement “develop and manage packaging strategy” could be tied in more closely to the CE strategy on resource acquisition. The BP4 level considers supply-chain resourcing, and there are numerous statements that tie in well to the CE loops, with some sharper statements that specifically used the loop terms such as, 4.4.2.6 “salvage or repair returned products,” 4.4.2.6.1 “perform salvage activities” and 4.4.2.6.2 “manage repair/refurbishment and return to customer/stock.” At BP5, level, 5.1.2.3 statements include “evaluate resource availability” and 5.2.1.3 “collaborate with customers” where CE alternatives need to include those who are part of “deliver services.” The final operating process BP6 includes 6.1.6 “define warranty offering” and 6.5.4.4 “identify opportunities to eliminate warranty waste” which suggest a reference to CE loops, but the notes need to clearly relate these statements to the CE loops. The language of CE, such as reference to the 4 Rs, needs more emphasis in the PCF hierarchical levels to enable enterprises to address the process stages and create a more interconnected approach to CE. It is in these examples, that existing business process frameworks, such as the PFC with its focus on the inter-organizational view, alongside SCOR and GSCF supply-chain frameworks, can be updated with the language associated with CE to consistently map CE activities in organizations from different industries. Furthermore, these frameworks could be adapted or used by enterprises to design, develop and implement CE activities across different industries. Furthermore, the focus on the GSCF model is linked to networking between enterprises, suppliers, and customers. This is seen as an essential feature of the CE and managing these relationships is not a central part of the PCF framework.

Conclusions The four research propositions were addressed and provided valuable findings to enable a better understanding of enterprises’ current situation, as well as gain a wider understanding of where process frameworks and Industry 4.0 are aligned to the 4 Rs of CE. The research propositions confirmed: Proposition 1: Enterprises engage in CE activities across any of the four main loops (Rs). All loops were identified but mainly acknowledged that the least valuable loops are the ones currently addressed by enterprises. Proposition 2: Enterprises are associated with CE activities for each of the PCF operating process stages (stages BP1-BP6). The CE loops show the highest match to BP1 and 2 but only a limited match with BP3-6. Proposition 3: There is evidence of all four CE loops in all surveyed enterprises. The study found evidence in this study of only one out of 333 enterprises engaging in all four CE loops. Proposition 4: There is no evidence that enterprises that acknowledge or actively practice CE practices also record a link to Industry 4.0 to support their CE activities.

Potential for a Process Framework to Guide the Implementation...

23

The contribution of this study to the field of CE literature is fourfold. Firstly, we identified a gap between enterprise engagement in CE versus sustainability, indicating that there is a lack of awareness, skills, and processes to embed CE into the enterprise strategy. Secondly, we identified the possibilities and limitations of the PCF framework to align processes to the CE loops. Thirdly, we recognized the possibilities of supply-chain frameworks to complement internal process frameworks through inter-organizational, customer relationship management, and supply-chain management perspectives to suggest a more comprehensive and practical framework for use by enterprises. Fourthly, enterprises that acknowledge or actively practice CE practices do not record a link to Industry 4.0 to support their CE activities. The preliminary findings raise important questions for further work. In particular, the authors analyzed the website statements to record the intention to do rather than proof of doing and this important distinction means further research is required to assess the status of intention versus active engagement in CE activity and process changes. The findings from Proposition 2 suggest that there are unclear connections between CE loops and business processes, particularly BP3-6 suggesting that change needs to be instigated in enterprises to adapt to and implement the CE processes. The findings confirmed across seven industrial sectors, that sustainability exceeds CE in each of these sectors but the smallest difference is recorded in wholesale and retail (18%) and information and communication (20%) sectors. Further research should examine how agile the sectors need to be to respond to a change in implementing processes within the enterprise and its supply chain. The findings confirmed a need for a new conceptual model consisting of three main constructs: process frameworks, CE factors, and Industry 4.0 technologies, to be explored to confirm where process frameworks can be maximized to support CE strategy to minimize scarce resources and maximize resource utilization. The study has a number of limitations. In particular, it would be useful to broaden the study to include more enterprises in each industry sector and include more industry sectors in the sample study. The data captured CE statements from the enterprise websites. The analysis did not make a distinction to separate those enterprises providing evidence of actual engagement in CE activities as opposed to those enterprises stating an intention to engage in CE. Separating these distinct statements could provide more valuable insights into the current situation.

References APQC. 2022. Process classification framework. American Productivity and Quality Center. http://www.apqc.org/pcf. Aguilar-Saven, R.S. 2004. Business process modelling: Review and framework. International Journal of Production Economics, 90: 129-149.

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Blomsma, F., M. Tennant and R. Ozaki. 2022. Making sense of circular economy: Understanding the progression from idea to action. Business Strategy and the Environment, 32(3): 1059-1084. Blunck, E. and H. Werthmann. 2017. Industry 4.0 – An opportunity to realize sustainable manufacturing and its potential for a circular economy. DIEM: Dubrovnik International Economic Meeting, 3: 644-666. Bolumole, Y.A., A.M. Knemeyer and D.M. Lambert. 2003. The Customer Service Management Process. The International Journal of Logistics Management, 14: 15-31. Charter, M. 2018. Circular Economy innovation and design: Setting the scene. pp. 23-34. In: M. Charter [ed.]. Designing for the Circular Economy. Routledge. Creswell, J.W. 2013. Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches. Third edition. Sage, Washington DC. Croxton, K.L., S.J. García-Dastugue, D.M. Lambert and D.S. Rogers. 2001. The supply chain management processes. The International Journal of Logistics Management, 12: 13-36. Croxton, K.L., D.M. Lambert, S.J. García-Dastugue and D.S. Rogers. 2002. The demand management process. The International Journal of Logistics Management. 13: 51-66. Croxton, K.L. 2003. The order fulfillment process. The International Journal of Logistics Management, 14: 19-33. Dagnino, G.B. 2007. Coopetition Strategy – Toward a new kind of inter-firm dynamics? International Studies of Management & Organisation, 37: 3-10. Davenport, T.H. 1993. Process Innovation: Reengineering Work through Information Technology. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Derkacz, A.J., A. Dudziak and M. Stoma. 2021. General Concept of Business Process Measures in the Circular Economy. Sustainability, 13(22): 12675. Ekins, P., T. Domenech, P. Drummond, R. Bleischwitz, N. Hughes and L. Lotti. 2019. The Circular Economy: What, Why, How and Where. Background paper for an OECD/EC Workshop on 5 July 2019 within the workshop series. Managing Environmental and Energy Transitions for Regions and Cities. Paris. Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF). 2013. Towards The Circular Economy. 1. Cowes. Isle of Wight. Esposito, M., T. Tse and K. Soufani. 2018. Introducing a circular economy: New thinking with new managerial and policy implications. California Management Review, 60: 5-19. Goldsby, T.J. and S.J. García-Dastugue. 2003. The manufacturing flow process. The International Journal of Logistics Management. 14: 33-52. Hennemann Hilario da Silva, T. and S. Sehnem. 2022. The circular economy and Industry 4.0: Synergies and challenges. Revista de Gestão, 29: 300-313. Hammer, M. and J. Champy. 1993. Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution,1st Ed. New York. Harper Business. Geissdoerfer, M., D. Vladimirova and S. Evans. 2018. Sustainable business model innovation: A review. Journal of Cleaner Production, 198: 401-416. IBM. What is Industry 4.0 and how does it work? http://www.ibm.com/uk-en/topics/ industry-4-0 Jørgensen, S. and L.J.T. Pedersen. 2018. Towards smart and sustainable business models in retail. pp. 177-192. In: N. Bocken, P. Ritala, L. Albareda and R. Verburg [eds]. Innovation for Sustainability: Business Transformations Towards a Better World. London, Palgrave. Kalmykova, Y., M. Sadagopan and L. Rosado. 2018. Circular economy – From review of theories and practices to development of implementation tools. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 135: 190-201. Kirchherr, J., D. Reike and M. Hekkert. 2017. Conceptualizing the circular economy: An analysis of 114 definitions. Resources, Conservation and Recycling. 127: 221-232.

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Khan, M., G. Serafeim and A. Yoon. 2016. Corporate sustainability: First evidence on materiality. Accounting Review, 91: 1697-1724. Khan, S.A.R., A. Razzaq, Z. Yu and S. Miller. 2021. Industry 4.0 and circular economy practices: A new era business strategies for environmental sustainability. Business Strategy and the Environment, 30: 4001-4014. Kristoffersen, E., F. Blomsma, P. Mikalef and J. Li. 2020. The smart circular economy: A digital-enabled circular strategies framework for manufacturing companies. Journal of Business Research, 120: 241-261. Lambert, D.M., S.J. García‐Dastugue and K.L. Croxton. 2005. An evaluation of process‐ oriented supply chain management frameworks. Journal of Business Logistics, 26: 25-51. Levy, Y. and T.J. Ellis. 2011. A guide for novice researchers on experimental and quasiexperimental studies in information systems research. Interdisciplinary Journal of Information, Knowledge, and Management, 6: 151-161. Lewandowski, M. 2016. Designing the business models for circular economy – Towards the conceptual framework. Sustainability, 8(1): 43. Lu, H., G. Zhao and S. Liu. 2022. Integrating circular economy and Industry 4.0 for sustainable supply chain management: A dynamic capability view. Production Planning & Control, 1-17. Mangers, J., M. Minoufekr, P. Plapper and S. Kolla. 2021. An innovative strategy allowing a holistic system change towards circular economy within supply-chains. Energies, 14(14): 4375. Mirzabeiki, V., Q. He and D. Sarpong. 2021. Sustainability-driven co-opetition in supply chains as strategic capabilities: Drivers, facilitators, and barriers. International Journal of Production Research, 1-27. OECD. 2010. Structural and Demographic Business Statistics. OECD Publishing. Paris, Osterwalder, A. and Y. Pigneur. 2010. Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers. John Wiley & Sons. London. Patil, V., T. Tanb, S. Rispens, S. Dabadghaoa and E. Demerouti. 2022. Supplier sustainability: A comprehensive review and future research directions. Sustainable Manufacturing and Service Economics, 1: 1-14. Porter, M.E. 2011. Competitive Advantage of Nations: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance. Simon and Schuster. PwC. 2016. https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/industries/industries-4.0/landing-page/industry-4.0building-your-digital-enterprise-april-2016.pdf (last accessed 08/11/2022) PwC. 2018. http://www.pwc.com/hu/en/kiadvanyok/assets/pdf/Closing-the-loop-the-circulareconomy.pdf (last accessed 26/09/2022) Pearce, D. and R. Turner. 1990. Economics of Natural Resources and the Environment. Harvester Wheatsheaf, Hemel Hempstead, Herts, UK. Porter, M.E. and M.R. Kramer. 2011. The big idea: Creating shared value. Harvard Business Review, 89: 2-17. Potting, J., M. Hekkert, E. Worrell and A. Hanemaaijer. 2017. Circular Economy: Measuring Innovation in the Product Chain. January, PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency. The Hague, https://www.pbl.nl/sites/default/files/cms/publicaties/pbl-2016circular-economy-measuringinnovation-in-product-chains-2544.pdf. Rogers, D.S., M.D. Lambert, K.L. Croxton and S.J. García-Dastugue. 2002. The returns management process. The International Journal of Logistics Management, 13: 1-18. Rogers, D.S., D.M. Lambert and A.M. Knemeyer. 2004. The product development and commercialization process. The International Journal of Logistics Management, 15: 43-56.

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Rajput, S. and S.P. Singh. 2019. Connecting circular economy and Industry 4.0. International Journal of Information Management, 49: 98-113. Rashid, A., F.M.A. Asif, P. Krajnik and C.M. Nicolescu. 2013. Resource conservative manufacturing: An essential change in business and technology paradigm for sustainable manufacturing. Journal of Cleaner Production, 57: 166-177. Šajn, N. 2022. Right to repair. Briefing. EPRS European Parliamentary Research Service Author: Members’ Research Service PE 698.869 – January 2022. Saunders, M., P. Lewis and A. Thornhill. 2003. Research Methods for Business Students, Third Edition. Pearson Education, Harlow. Seuring, S. and M. Müller. 2008. From a literature review to a conceptual framework for sustainable supply chain management. Journal of Cleaner Production, 16: 1699-1710. SICCODES. http://www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/classificationsandstandards/ukstandard industrialclassificationofeconomicactivities/uksic2007 (last accessed 26th September 2022) Supply-Chain Council. 2003. Supply-Chain Operations Reference-model. Overview of SCOR Version 6.0. Stahel, W.R. 1982. Product-Life Factor. Mitchell Prize Winning Paper, Product-Life Institute, http://www.product-life.org/en/major-publications/the-product-life-factor. Stahel, W.R. 2016. The circular economy. Nature, 531: 435-438. Wieser, H. and N. Tröger. 2018. Exploring the inner loops of the circular economy: Replacement, repair, and reuse of mobile phones in Austria. Journal of Cleaner Production, 172: 3042-3055. Yadav, G., S. Luthra, S. Jakhar, S.K. Mangla and D.P. Rai. 2020. A framework to overcome sustainable supply chain challenges through solution measures of Industry 4.0 and circular economy: An automotive case. Journal of Cleaner Production, 254: 120112. Yu, Z., S.A.R. Khan and M. Umar. 2022. Circular economy practices and Industry 4.0 technologies: A strategic move of automobile industry. Business Strategy and the Environment, 31: 796-809. Zawadzki, P. and K. Żywicki. 2016. Smart product design and production control for effective mass customization in the Industry 4.0 concept. Management and Production Engineering Review, 3: 105-112. Ziemba, E., M. Eisenbardt, R. Mullins and S. Dettmer. 2019. Prosumers’ engagement in business process innovation – The case of Poland and UK. Interdisciplinary Journal of Information, Knowledge, and Management, 14: 119-143.

CHAPTER

2

The State of Research on Emerging Information and Communication Technologies for Sustainable Development Arkadiusz Januszewski* and Dariusz Żółtowski Faculty of Management, Bydgoszcz University of Science and Technology, Poland [email protected]; [email protected]

Introduction Information technologies (IT), information and communication technologies (ICT), and information systems (IS) have been the subject of extensive research for years. Over 322,000 scientific publications and books on various issues related to ICT/IT/ IS can be found in the web science (WoS) database itself of which over 183,000 have been published in the last ten years (2013–2022), and 114,000 in the last five years (2017–2022). Sustainable development (SD), whose assurance is increasingly considered to be necessary, has also been amply researched and publicized. Since 1974, WoS has published 416,000 articles and papers that contain the phrase “sustainable development” or “sustainability” (the terms are often used synonymously) in the title, keywords, or abstract. Out of these publications, approximately 322,000 have been published in the last 10 years, and 239,000 in the last five years. Many publications emphasize the role of ICT/IT/IS in providing sustainable development. The WoS database includes almost 10,000 publications that also contain phrases related to ICT/IT/IS and SD/sustainability. At the same time, narrowing the search to emerging ICT (EICT) drastically reduced the number of indications to just 23. The analysis of the content of 23 WoS articles indicated that they concern various emerging ICT for a specific field of sustainability (14 papers, including two systematic literature reviews), or only mention the important role of ICT emerging in Sustainability (six papers), or vice versa, i.e., focus on EICT, but they hardly have any link to SD (three articles). *Corresponding author: [email protected]

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Theoretical Issues on Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability

An initial analysis of bibliographic databases allowed us to draw the following conclusions: 1. There is a lack of studies that comprehensively show the state of research on emerging ICT in sustainability. 2. The authors of publications describing research on the use of new ICT/IT/IS in the context of sustainability rarely define the described technologies as emerging ICT. Therefore, it is justified to conduct an extended study that would state all scientific work on ICT/IT/IS. The above conclusions lead to the formulation of the following research problem: What is the holistic view of the research on ICT/IT/IS (mainly emerging ICT) in the context of sustainable development? Consequently, the main aim of the research presented in this chapter was to recognize the state of research on the use of ICT, especially those described as emerging, for sustainable development. The main research method described in detail in the next sections of the chapter was a bibliometric analysis (BA). The BA results are preceded by an explanation of the basic concepts referred to as EICT and a review of publications concerning EICT in the context of sustainability, mainly publications summarizing the state of research in this area i.e., systematic literature reviews (SLR) or BA. This contribution of this study to science lies in providing a comprehensive picture of research on emerging ICT/IT/IS applied to sustainable development, based on quantitative data. In particular, it aims to indicate the exploited and newly emerging research areas in this context.

Views on ICT for Sustainability Emerging ICT in the Literature There are many definitions of emerging technologies (ET) in the literature (Rotolo et al. 2015). ET are technologies in an early stage of their development process (Boon and Moors 2008), but they have already moved beyond the purely conceptual stage (Stahl 2011). They are fast-growing or at least growing technologies that show high potential but have not demonstrated their value yet (Cozzens et al. 2010; Hung and Chu 2006; Small et al. 2014). The literature emphasizes the influence of ET on the economy and society. The exploitation of ET should benefit a wide range of economy and/or society sectors (Martin 1995), could exert much enhanced economic influence, and become socially relevant within the foreseeable future, which is equated to a time frame of 10–15 years (Porter et al. 2002; Stahl et al. 2017). ICT plays a very important role in emerging technologies affecting individuals, societies, and economies in different ways. Scientific studies describing EICT usually place them in a specific context. Results of the scientometric analysis on the emerging ICT trends in seismic hazard are presented in the study by Saini and Sood (2021). The authors identified ICT

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29

publication trends in five categories: distributed computing, artificial intelligence (AI), remote sensing, robotics, and GIS. Then, they analyzed the most common keywords pointing to a specific technology or ICT: 1. Distributed computing: Social media, wireless sensor network, big data (BD), Twitter, manet, Internet of Things (IoT), ad-hoc network, and cloud computing (CC); 2. AI: GIS, data mining, neural network, artificial neural network, and machine learning (ML); 3. Remote sensing: Social media, synthetic aperture radar (SAR), support vector machine, and laser scanning; 4. Robotics: Automated robot, distributed shared memory, heterogeneous mobile multihop communications, ubiquitous computing, virtual reality, and rescue robot; 5. GIS: Data mining, web GIS. Stahl et al. (2017), in an article on ethical issues related to the field of EICT, identified the following 11 EICT: affective computing, ambient intelligence, AI, bioelectronics, cloud computing, future internet, human-machine symbiosis, neuroelectronics, quantum computing, robotics, and virtual/augmented reality. Other authors focus less on identifying and arranging different EICTs applicable in a specific area and merely list them. An important application area of emerging ICT is Industry 4.0. It is a production solution that makes possible intelligent manufacturing by integrating inventive components and technologies such as big data analytics, simulation of things, cyber-physical systems, IoT, cloud computing, virtual/augmented reality, robotics, and 3D printing (Türkes et al. 2019; Li et al. 2020; Piosik 2022). Another concept whose implementation requires comprehensive application of such ICT as IoT, BD, AI, and mobile internet is a smart city (Guo et al. 2019). Furthermore, supply chains have become another specific area of EICT application. Kamble et al. (2020) tried to prove that blockchain technology is a core technology that, together with the Internet of Services, IoT, CC, AI, and 3D printing can lead to improvements in the sustainable performance of the agriculture supply chains. Saurabh and Dey (2021) and Lehmann et al. (2012) pointed to ICT’s vital role in electronic agriculture and the fact that the application of such technologies as blockchain, IoT, RFID, wireless sensor networks, CC, and ML can improve the agri-food supply chain efficiency and quality management. In the context of electronic agriculture, referred to as Agriculture 4.0, Jellason et al. (2021) cited AI, biotechnology, IoT, BD, and robotics as emerging technologies that can improve agriculture and the sustainability of food production. This preliminary literature review showed that the technologies mentioned in the literature as emerging ICT most frequently include AI, IoT, CC, and BD. This observation is confirmed by Park et al. (2019) who believed that BD, IoT, and CC together with AI and blockchain take the lead role in ICT and provide different types of communication networks and technologies for sharing data all over the world. AI, BD, IoT, and CC were also indicated as emerging ICT trends in the Measuring the Information Society Report 2017 (MISR 2017).

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Theoretical Issues on Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability

Emerging ICT for Sustainability in the Literature ICT impacts economic growth and increasingly affects societies around the world (Soma et al. 2016). ICT is seen as a good driver for sustainability, promotes sustainable development strategies, and provides opportunities to accelerate digital transformation shifting the global economy into an e-economy (Agrawal 2012; Liu and Yu 2022). ICT for sustainability is seen as an emerging research field (Hilty and Aebischer 2015). On the one hand, the negative role played by the ICT industry development is recognized and its effects on increasing energy consumption are analyzed (Fuchs 2008). On the other, the literature points to positive solutions and emerging technologies that can ensure sustainable development in three main aspects of sustainability i.e., social sustainability, economic sustainability, and environmental protection (Bouzguenda et al. 2019). Innovation is one of the most important factors that influence sustainability and IT/ICT and IS may have a pivotal role as a change actant in it (Bengtsson and Agerfalk 2011). The authors of the Measuring the Information Society Report (2017) claimed that advanced ICT, such as IoT, BD analytics, CC, and AI can contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. The Sustainable Development Goals were established by the United Nations in 2015 as a shared agenda and blueprint for promoting peace and prosperity for people and the planet, both in the present and future (Ismagilova et al. 2019). They also pointed to promising applications existing in areas, such as manufacturing, precision agriculture, government, education, health care, smart cities, and smart transportation. Based on the analysis of articles containing systematic literature review or BA, which were found in WoS, it can be concluded that in the context of ICT/IT/IS for sustainability or sustainable development, the most often discussed issues relate to green IT, smart cities, health care, and intelligent manufacturing. The first SLR found in WoS was carried out by Asadi et al. (2017). The authors searched 17 well-recognized information systems journals and proceedings of scientific conferences (mainly organized by the Association for Information Systems) and identified 131 papers addressing green IT, which were published between 2007 and 2016. They pointed to the main study themes regarding several aspects of green IT adoption but did not indicate articles that would directly refer to a specific ICT category. In 2020, Singh and Sahu conducted an interesting SLR in the field of green IT and green IS. They searched research articles, book chapters, and reports from the top ten databases, which were published within the timeframe of 2000–2019. They adopted a classification approach to conduct the study, and the research area was categorized under five segments, namely, the green IS concept, innovation and technology, the impact of green initiatives, measures and policies, and global context. The last literature review in the field of green IT, indexed in the WoS database, was published in February 2022 (Guillaume et al. 2022). The authors analyzed 45 articles, conference papers, or gray literature types published after 1992. They focused on works examining how data centers, communication networks, and computer equipment influence power consumption and how green IT including data center redesign and the growing popularity of virtualization, green networks,

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31

and CC can reduce gas emissions. The authors also discussed the advantages and disadvantages of technologies such as IoT, 5G telecoms, blockchain, cryptocurrency, and AI in terms of their environmental impact. The next two papers included BA and SLR referring to the research on smart cities. Guo et al. (2019) found a total of WoS 4,409 works on smart cities published from 1998 to 2019. Using the BA and the VOS viewer software, they established six clusters containing keywords describing smart cities. Two clusters defined domains related to IT. In the domain of “telecommunications and computer science,” the most commonly used keywords are IoT, internet, networks, wireless sensor networks, and CC. On the other hand, in the domain of “urban science technology,” the prominent keywords are data mining, neural network, GIS, GPS, and navigation were placed. In turn, Ismagilova et al. (2019) reviewed 104 articles from the journals in the “Information Management” category of the Academic Journal Guide 2018. The authors analyzed articles in the following dimensions of smart cities in which ICT can be used, including mobility, living, environment, smart economy, smart architecture, and technologies. Based on the results presented, it can be concluded that the technologies and systems discussed the most often in IS journals concerning smart cities are IoT, CC, Bluetooth, BD, internet of Vehicles, and sensors. Two further works of literature review type concerned EICT for sustainability in healthcare and manufacturing. In the context of Goal 3 of the Sustainable Development Goals, which aims at ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all at all ages, a detailed SLR was carried out by Zahid et al. (2021). The authors probed deeply 69 articles from the three electronic databases and identified four groups of emerging IT that would support sustainable healthcare: 1) AI, machine learning, and deep learning, 2) big data, 3) virtual/augmented reality, and 4) digital twin. Li et al. (2020) analyzed over 140 articles focusing on advanced manufacturing paradigms, like industrial IoT, sustainable manufacturing, mass customization, cyberphysical manufacturing systems, cloud manufacturing, intelligent manufacturing, and global manufacturing. They identified IoT, cyber-physical systems, CC, AI, BD, and augmented/virtual reality as the most important ICT that impact these manufacturing paradigms and stated that IoT and sustainability in the manufacturing industry are major concern. A summary of the research described above in articles presenting SLR or BA on EICT in the context of sustainability is included in Table 1. Among the 23 articles from the WoS database mentioned in the introduction section that were found using a phrase containing both emerging ICT and sustainability (or sustainable development), there were the already-mentioned literature review articles describing EICT in the context of sustainable data-centric healthcare (Zahid et al. 2021) and sustainable manufacturing (Li et al. 2020), four articles on smart cities, and 17 articles on other research areas. In the articles focusing on smart cities, IoT, BD analytics with AI and ML algorithms, and blockchain were pointed out as the most relevant existing and emerging ICT that can be used in smart city governance and urban sustainability in different city domains like energy, environment, transportation, health, and public safety (Huang 2018; Benavente-Peces 2019; Tang and Ho 2019; Russo and Comi 2021). Other articles only emphasized the role of ICT

Author(s)/ Publication Year

Bibliographic Source

Sustainability Time Frame Area

No. of Articles

Emerald, Science Direct, EBSCOhost, Green IT ACM Digital Library, IEEE, JSTOR, ProQuest, Sage, Wiley online, Springer link

2000–2019

224

Asadi et al. (2017)

17 information systems journals and proceedings of scientific conferences (mainly organized by the Association for Information Systems) Online databases, conference papers, gray literature

Green IT

2006–2017

131

Green IT

1992–2022

45

Journals in the “Information Management” category of the Academic Journal Guide 2018 Guo et al. (2019) Web of Science

Smart cities

1990–2018

104

Smart cities

1998–2019

4,409

Zahid et al. (2021)

IEEE Xplore, ACM Digital Library, and PubMed

Healthcare

2015–2021

69

Li et al. (2020)

Elsevier Science Direct, IEEE Xplore, other journals

Manufacturing

1995–2020 (February)

142

Guillaume et al. (2022) Ismagilova et al. (2019)

Source: Own analysis.

Virtualization (11), greening of data centers (10), cloud computing (9), smart grids (8), sensor technology (8), smart metering technology (6), environmental management information systems (5), environmental management systems (5), and green apps (3) ICT (in general)

AI, IoT, blockchain, cryptocurrency, virtualization, green networks, and cloud computing IoT, cloud computing, big data, bluetooth, and sensors IoT, networks, wireless sensor networks, cloud computing, data mining, neural network, GIS, GPS, and navigation AI, machine learning, deep learning (27), big data (17), virtual/augmented reality (17), and digital twin (7) IoT, cyber-physical systems, cloud computing, big data, virtual/augmented reality

Theoretical Issues on Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability

Singh and Sahu (2020)

EICT Researched/Described (# of Articles )

32

Table 1. EICT identified and described in the articles of SLR and BA type in the context of sustainability

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33

in a specific sustainability area like food sharing (Davies et al. 2017), traffic systems (Pasquale et al. 2019), tourism industry (Kim and Chang 2020) or e-agriculture (Saurabh and Dey 2021), or described a specific ICT solution or application. The results of the preliminary analysis of the literature contained in the WoS database presented above indicate that green IT and smart cities are among the most frequently penetrated sustainability areas that have been studied in the context of EICT applications. EICT in sustainable healthcare and manufacturing has been studied a little less frequently. Other areas of sustainability were rarely penetrated or not described at all. At the same time, it can be concluded that from the point of view of the mentioned sustainability areas, the most important ICT are IoT, CC, BD, and AI. In addition, virtual/augmented reality is an important technology for sustainable healthcare and manufacturing, and cyber-physical systems are crucial for manufacturing. In the context of healthcare, however, IoT applications have not been studied, which may be somewhat surprising due to the possibility of connecting various devices examining the patient’s condition to the network.

Description of Literature Review Study Research Goals and Main Research Stages The main research goal was to recognize the state of research on the use of ICT, especially those described as “emerging” for sustainable development. The specific objectives included: 1) determining which IT are currently referred to as emerging ICT most often, 2) pointing to those that were most often and least often described in scientific works on sustainability, and 3) identifying specific areas of sustainability in which emerging ICT are applied.

Research Model The research was organized based on the developed research model presented in Figure 1. This research model was developed on the requirements of the research and the experience of other researchers with defined and applied models (ZakrzewskaBielawska 2018). The model was a general description of the research and it was the basis for the development of a four-stage research procedure enabling the achievement of the main research goal and solving specific research problems.

Figure 1. Research model

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Theoretical Issues on Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability

Stage 0 was a pre-research preparation step. This step is aimed at getting a view of the publications related to the research on emerging ICT, especially those which are used for sustainable development or are placed in a sustainability context. The preliminary literature review concerning emerging technologies, especially emerging ICT, including papers with systematic literature reviews and BA, was conducted. The additional goal of Stage 0 was to verify the research potential of scientific works that simultaneously concern “emerging ICT” and “sustainability.” As a result of searching the bibliographic data of the WoS database, a list of 23 articles meeting the condition of the presence of these phrases in the title, abstract, or keywords was obtained. The results of the above verification indicated the need to change the preliminary research assumptions. It was concluded that in further research on sustainability, the reference to ICT/IT/IS should be as broad as possible, with no limitation of the data set to those technologies and systems directly defined as “emerging.” The results of Stage 0 have been described in the previous section of the chapter. In the first phase of the study, all the articles related to emerging ICT were subjected to BA (as evidenced by the presence of an appropriate phrase in the title, abstract, or keywords). The main aim of this stage was to determine what keywords in the scientific papers describe ICT as emerging ICT. In Stage 2, the articles referring to ICT/IT/IS in the context of sustainability from WoS were selected and the list of the keywords was compiled. Then, the most often occurring keywords were identified, and words related to ICT/IT/IS were grouped by theme. The last stage enabled us to determine which of the keywords identified in Stage 1 and listed in the articles analyzed in the preliminary literature review (previous section) as describing emerging ICT appeared in the selected articles. The sources of data in the last and the third phase of the study were articles selected in the second phase. The conducted analysis aimed at denoting in which areas of sustainability emerging ICT were most often applied, in particular checking which areas of sustainability were indicated in the proposed chapters of the book (production and consumption patterns, management, business, finance, marketing, decision making, education and healthcare, information societies, and smart cities) and were the subject of previous research in this range. The main four stages, with related aims and research questions, are included in Table 2.

Research Method A vast number of publications by authors from around the world, the ease of obtaining them, and the availability of analytical tools allow for a deep study and analysis of research activities on a global scale. The relatively broad scope and purpose of the study were defined, attempting to ensure the achievement of the objectives of the entire book as a holistic recognition of the state of ICT/IT/IS for sustainability research (and not only as related to specific areas of sustainable development or specific emerging technologies used within sustainable development) justified the choice of BA as a research method.1 1

The preliminary assessment of the number of articles that were to be the subject of the study i.e., articles concerning both information and communication technologies (or information technologies or information systems) and sustainable development (or sustainability), showed that there are several thousand of them in bibliographic databases.

Stage

Main Research Areas

Main Stage Aims

Research Questions

0

Emerging ICT/IT/IS in the context of sustainability – preliminary research

To get a preliminary view of the research of emerging ICT used for sustainability

Are emerging ICT important research subjects in the field of sustainable development or sustainability?

1

Emerging ICT/IT/IS – bibliometric data preparation and analysis

Identification of the ICT which is described as emerging ICT

RQ1

Emerging ICT/IT/IS in the context of sustainability – bibliometric data preparation and analysis

Identification of the emerging ICT which is the most often described in the context of sustainable development

2

RQ2 RQ3 RQ4 RQ5 RQ6 RQ7

3

Sustainability areas for emerging ICT/IT/IS application

Identification of the most often and most rarely (or not at all) sustainability areas in which emerging ICT is applied

How many articles were identified referring to emerging ICT, indicating the authors’ affiliations and the year of publication? Which are the most frequently occurring keywords? Which of the keywords are related to emerging ICT? How many articles were identified referring to emerging ICT, indicating the authors’ affiliations and the year of publication? Which are the most frequently appeared keywords? Which of the keywords are related to widely understood ICT/ IT/IS? Which keywords are the same as the keywords identified for emerging ICT?

RQ8

Which sustainability areas are described by keywords indicated in the proposed chapters of the book?

RQ9

What other sustainability areas are described by the keywords in the articles selected in Stage 2

The State of Research on Emerging Information and Communication...

Table 2. Stages of the research, its aims, and referred research questions

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Theoretical Issues on Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability

Preparing a study with the use of BA required the selection of the data source i.e., the bibliographic database (or databases) first. Bearing in mind all the limitations resulting from the selection made, it was decided to choose WoS as a reputable base covering, among others, journals from the so-called Journal Citation Reports and Journal Master List. The choice of this database was also influenced by the analytical tools built into the WoS platform, the ability to export files with data about the searched publications in formats that allow further work with the use of external software such as VOSviewer, and previous positive experiences of many authors and researchers (Donthu et al. 2021; Guo et al. 2019; Khalili et al. 2021; Moral-Muñoz et al. 2019; Osinska et al. 2021; van Eck et al. 2010; Żółtowski 2022). VOSviewer was used employed to identify co-occurring keywords and the strength of their relationships, aggregate them, and visualize the results as keywords’ maps.

WoS Database Search Criteria Publications meeting the following conditions were accepted for the study: 1. Research subject: Scientific publications (scientific articles, books, and materials from scientific conferences) 2. Geographical scope of the study: Global 3. Thematic areas: “Sustainable development” and “sustainability” 4. Detailed topics: “ICT” or “information systems” or “information technologies” 5. Time range of publication: Unlimited 6. Language of publication: English. Articles that did not meet the above conditions were excluded from the study. The following were used to attain the aims: 1. Web of Science publication databases is for identifying scientific publications that meet the research conditions and preparing data for analysis and presentation. 2. WoS database’s export tools is for preparing files with bibliometric data of identified publications and their export in a format recognized by external software (VOSviewer). 3. VOSviewer software is for reading files with bibliometric data from the WoS database and visualizing the results as maps, as well as for preparing data for further analyses. 4. Excel is for detailed data analysis from files prepared in VOSviewer. The preliminary research in the WoS database showed that when searching for scientific papers, it is worth taking into account the presence of appropriate phrases in the title, abstract, or keywords, use the “*” (which replaces a string of any characters) and “?” (which replaces exactly one character) signs and follow the syntax rules for defining queries.

Research Procedure A detailed research procedure that takes into account the described assumptions and the criteria for searching the WoS database is presented in the diagram below

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(Figure 2). The figure presents the complete procedure of actions undertaken during the research, according to the research model.

Figure 2. Research procedure

State of Research on ICT for Sustainability Emerging ICT – Stage 1 Results There are 488 articles with the phrase “Emerging ICT” (or similar words) found (Table 3). They were published between 1970 and 2022. The largest number of articles (274, that is ca. 56%) have been published in the last 10 years. A total of 153 articles (ca. 31%) have been published between 2018 and 2022, 121 articles (ca. 25%) were published between 2013 and 2017, 99 articles (ca. 20%) between 2008 and 2012, and 49 articles (ca. 10%) between 2003 and 2007. The remaining 66 articles

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Theoretical Issues on Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability

were published between 1970 and 2002. The number of articles on emerging ICT is constantly growing (by approx. 19% on average annually). The greatest interest in this research concentrates on the USA (124 affiliated authors), China (75), and the United Kingdom (43). Other countries are represented by less than 25 authors. The following phrases were identified as the most common (more than 20 occurrences) in articles on emerging ICT: internet (in 27 articles), management (25), model (25), cloud computing (23), adoption (22), and technology (20). The most common phrases among the keywords describing “emerging ICT” were big data or big data analytics (25 occurrences), cloud computing (23), IoT (17), AI (8), and blockchain (8). Table 3. Emerging ICT/IT/IS: Stage 1 results RQ1

Research Questions How many scientific articles from a reputable database concern issues related to emerging ICT? Which countries do most of their authors come from (affiliation)? In which years have they been published?

Main Results A total of 488 articles There are 633 authors from 83 countries. Most of the authors (38%) are affiliated with the USA, China, and the UK 1970–2022. 56% of all the articles were published in the last 10 years (2013–2022)

RQ2

What keywords occur most frequently in these scientific articles?

Internet (27 occurrences), management (25), model (25), cloud computing (23), adoption (22), and technology (20)

RQ3

Which keywords relate to emerging ICT?

Big data or big data analytics (25 occurrences), cloud computing (23), IoT (17), AI (8), and blockchain (8)

ICT for Sustainability: Stage 2 Results The phrase “ICT” (or similar) co-occurring with the phrase “Sustainable development” (or “sustainability”) was found in 9,171 articles written by 9,969 authors (Table 4). The largest number of articles (4,401, that is ca. 48%) has been published in the last 5 years (2018–2022). A total of 2,675 articles (ca. 29%) were published between 2013 and 2017, 1,320 articles (ca. 14%) between 2008 and 2012, and 477 articles (ca. 5%) between 2003 and 2007. The remaining 298 articles were published between 1990 and 2002. The number of articles is constantly growing (on average by approx. 17% a year), almost half the number of the articles has been published in the last 5 years, and over 75% in the current decade. The greatest interest in emerging ICT research was observed in the USA (1,290 affiliations) and China (1,163), less in the UK (613), Italy (556), Spain (555), India (514), Germany (442), and Australia (436). The remaining countries were represented by less than 300 authors.

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Table 4. ICT/IT/IS in the context of sustainability: Stage 2 results RQ4

Research Questions How many scientific articles concern issues related to both ICT and sustainable development? Which countries do most of their authors come from (affiliation)? When were they published?

RQ5

What keywords appear most frequently in these articles?

RQ6

Which keywords that appear most often are related to widely understood ICT/IT/IS?

RQ7

Which of the keywords pointed out in the articles analyzed in Stage 0 nor identified in Stage 1 as those which describe emerging ICT occur in the articles selected in Stage 2?

Main Results A total of 9,171 articles

There are 9,969 authors from 32 countries of which 26% of authors Ware affiliated in two countries: the USA and China Between 1990–2022. Mostly, 77% of all the articles have been published in the last 10 years (2013–2022) There are 26,753 keywords in all the articles. Also, 3,739 keywords occur in a minimum of three articles. The most often occurred keywords: • sustainability or sustainable development – 2,809 • information and communication technology (or similar) – 2,626 • geographical information systems (or similar) – 1,522 A total of 12 following groups of phrases related to the use of ICT/IT/IS in various branches, industries, or services in a sustainability context were identified: • GIS – 1,522 occurrences • Smart cities – 347 • Green technology – 340 • Healthcare and e-health – 220 • Knowledge management – 180 • Electronic government and administration – 154 • Electronic business – 101 • Digital activities or solutions – 88 • Internet or web – 75 • Management information systems – 74 • Electronic education – 67 • Information society and knowledge society – 40 • Big data or big data analytics or data analytics – 299 occurrences • IoT – 181 • Cloud computing – 109 • Blockchain or blockchain technology – 81 • AI – 79 • Virtual reality or augmented reality – 39 • Machine learning – 29 • Data mining – 29 • Business intelligence – 25 • Artificial neural network(s) – 17 • 5G mobile communication or 5G – 10 • Autonomous vehicles – 9 • Text mining – 7 • Business analytics – 6

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Theoretical Issues on Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability

The most common keywords were identified sustainability or sustainable development, which had 2,809 occurrences.2 Phrases information and communication technology (or similar) were found in 2,626 articles, geographical information systems (or similar) in 1,522 articles, and phrases containing the word “management” appeared in 1,797 articles, but the management term alone occurred 785 times.3 Furthermore, other most common keywords are not related to a specific area of research and have a general meaning, such as model (508 occurrences), impact (470), framework (424), performance (422), and innovation (401). The most important results of Stage 2 are those which answer the last two research questions (RQ 6 and RQ7). Furthermore, 12 groups of phrases related to the use of ICT/IT/IS in various branches, industries, or services in a sustainability context were identified. The most frequently occurring phrases concern GIS with 1,522 occurrences, smart cities appearing 347 times, and green technology (green IT, green IS, green ICT, green computing, green IS adoption, green software, etc.) appearing 340 times. Phrases related to the use of computer science in healthcare, such as health information systems, health informatics, hospital information systems, and electronic health/ medical record (s) occurred 135 times, and the phrases e-health, m-health, and telehealth appeared 85 times. Phrases related to knowledge management appeared in 180 articles, and phrases describing e-governance or administration services for the citizen, such as e-government, e-administration, e-services, etc. in 154 works. Keywords describing e-business (part of e-business such as e-commerce, e-procurement, e-services, e-marketing, and e-tourism) appeared in 101 articles. Phrases containing the word digital appeared in 133 articles (the most common phrases were digital transformation which occurred 47 times, digital technologies occured 25, and digital platforms occurred 15 times), and the word mobile occurred in 90 articles (the most common phrase mobile phone appeared 37 times), and words internet or web came in 75 papers. Phrases describing management information systems were found in 74 articles (ERP systems in 30 articles and expert systems in 11 articles), and electronic education in 67 articles. Keywords information society or knowledge society appeared 40 times. Among the keywords describing emerging ICT which were identified in Stage 1 of the study, the majority also appeared in 1,137 of 9,171 articles selected in Stage 2. The following phrases were most often used as keywords: big data or big data analytics (appeared in 261 articles), IoT (occurred in 181 articles), cloud computing (109 articles), blockchain or blockchain technology (81 articles), AI in 79 articles, and data analytics in 38 articles. An additional analysis of the keywords in the articles described in the section “Emerging ICT in the literature” resulted in the indication of 2

3

Additionally, over 650 phrases were found in which sustainability or sustainable development were combined with other words like environmental, goals, social, tourism, etc. Keywords: Supply chain management (or similar) has 176 occurrences, knowledge or information or data management has 124 occurrences, environmental management has 69 occurrences, water management has 56 occurrences, waste management has 39 occurrences, risk management has 28 occurrences, human-resource management has 27 occurrences, and project management has 27 occurrences.

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the following phrases: virtual or augmented reality (39 occurrences), data mining (29 articles), machine learning (29 articles), business intelligence (25 articles), artificial neural network(s) (17 articles), 5G mobile communication (10 articles), autonomous vehicles (9 articles), text mining (7 articles), and business analytics (6 articles).

Sustainability Areas as Fields for Emerging ICT Adoption: Stage 3 Results The goal of Stage 3 was to identify sustainability areas in which emerging ICT are most often or rarely applied. Most of the sustainability areas indicated in the proposed book chapters were identified by keywords appearing in 9,171 articles selected in the previous study phase (Table 5). The phrase “smart city” was definitely the most frequent, almost 350 times, and the least frequent phrase was “sustainable information society” which only appeared 5 times. Neither sustainable marketing nor sustainable healthcare was described in any article. Additional analysis showed that the most common phrases describing various sustainability areas that were not mentioned among individual topics of the book chapters are environmental or ecological sustainability (193 appearances), corporate sustainability (43 appearances), sustainable tourism (30 appearances), and sustainable supply chain (25 appearances). Other sustainability areas described by keywords occurring in articles selected in Stage 2 are concerned mainly with smart cities (45% of describing keywords), environmental or ecological sustainability aspects (24%), companies (15%), and social sustainability aspects (6%). The remaining identified keywords appeared in about 11% of the articles analyzed in Stage 2. This indicates that in the field of emerging ICT/IT/IS, these areas of sustainable development have been studied much less frequently than the others or so far have not been researched at all (like sustainable marketing and health care).

Co-occurring Emerging ICT Applied for Sustainability An important element of BA is determining which of the keywords occur simultaneously and how often. Concerning emerging ICT, such keyword identification makes it possible to determine which technologies are complementary i.e., complementary to each other. VOSviewer is a tool that allows the recognition of the co-occurred keywords in articles and the visualization of those relationships in maps. The first map was created based on the keywords describing emerging ICT identified in Stage 1 (Figure 3). The analysis of the map shows that the words cloud computing and big data were the most common. The distribution of the topics of articles (defined by keywords) over time may be very interesting for researchers. Overlay visualization for the cooccurred keywords describing ICT is presented below (Figure 4). The presented result means that the average date of the published articles with the keyword blockchain is close to the year 2020 and for articles with cloud computing the average date of publication is close to the year 2016. This means that the topic of cloud computing in publicized research was presented sooner than the topic of

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Theoretical Issues on Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability Table 5. Emerging ICT for sustainability: Stage 3 results Research Questions

RQ8

Results

Which of the book chapters on • Smart cities – 347 occurrences sustainability areas proposed by the • Sustainable finance or sustainable Editors of the book are identified or reporting – 20 not by keywords occurring in articles • Sustainable production or selected in Stage 2?

• • • • •

RQ9

• • What other sustainability areas • are described by the keywords occurring in the articles selected • in Stage 2? • • • • • • • •

sustainable manufacturing – 13 Sustainable management – 12 Business sustainability – 12 Sustainable education – 11 Sustainable consumption – 11 Sustainable information societies – 5 Sustainable marketing – 0 Sustainable health care – 0 Environmental or ecological sustainability – 193 occurrences Corporate sustainability – 43 Sustainable tourism – 30 Sustainable supply chain – 25 Sustainable agriculture – 21 Economic sustainability – 20 Sustainable urban development – 19 Sustainable transport – 14 Sustainable mobility – 11 Sustainable energy – 11

Figure 3. Co-occurred keywords describing emerging ICT

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blockchain. Apart from that the topic of blockchain is the newest subject of scientific research in comparison to other topics related to emerging ICT/IT/IS. The next map (Figure 5) shows the co-occurring keywords describing emerging ICT that were identified in Stage 2 of our study i.e., in articles on sustainable development. As before, cloud computing and big data were the most common, but strong relationships can also be observed between the following pairs: big data-IoT, cloud computing-IoT, and big data blockchain. The analysis of the further results (Figure 6) shows that the researchers’ interest in emerging ICT in the context of sustainability has shifted from CC, through IoT and BD, toward blockchain and machine learning. Concerning BD, the phrase BD analytics was used more often.

Figure 4. Average publication year of articles including emerging ICT/IT/IS keywords

Figure 5. Co-occurred keywords describing emerging ICT in the context of sustainability

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Theoretical Issues on Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability

Figure 6. Articles including emerging ICT keywords in the context of sustainability

Discussion on ICT for Sustainability The described quantitative study carried out using BA on the resources of the Web of Science database confirmed that the most important emerging ICT include BD, IoT, CC, and AI. These technologies were most often mentioned in prior studies conducted, among others, by Park et al. (2019), Türkes et al. (2019), Li et al. (2020), Kamble et al. (2020), and Piosik (2022). Also, the authors of the Measuring the Information Society Report (2017) claimed that these four emerging ICT can help in achieving Sustainable Development Goals. This observation also applies to ICT/IT/IS used to ensure sustainable development. They are confirmed both by the results of the study described in this chapter and earlier literature studies. Among the most important emerging ICT for smart cities are IoT, CC, BD, and data mining (Ismagilova et al. 2019; Guo et al. 2019). In turn, Guillaume et al. (2022) listed e.g., AI, IoT, and CC as important technologies in the implementation of the Green IT/Green IS concept. The study by Li et al. (2020) showed that IoT, BD, and CC are particularly important for sustainable manufacturing, and research by Zahid et al. (2021) proved that AI and BD play an important role in health care. The described study also confirmed that augmented/virtual reality is one of the most important emerging IT. These technologies were also indicated in literature research on ICT/IT/IS applications in sustainable manufacturing by Li et al. (2020) and healthcare by Zahid et al. (2021). It also showed the growing interest of researchers in blockchain technology, which appeared very rarely in previous literature studies. A preliminary analysis of the literature, limited to articles such as SLR or BA, in which ICT/IT/IS was described with the term “emerging,” showed that the most frequently explored areas of sustainability were smart cities (Ismagilova et al. 2019; Guo et al. 2019), green IT (Asadi et al. 2017; Singh and Sahu 2020; Guillaume et al. 2022), manufacturing (Li et al. 2020), and healthcare (Zahid et al. 2021). Few

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articles concerned other areas such as food sharing (Davies et al. 2017), traffic systems (Pasquale et al. 2019), the tourism industry (Kim and Chang 2020), and e-agriculture (Saurabh and Dey 2021). This study also shows that relatively often explored research fields include corporations, supply chains, finance or reporting, economic sustainability, and sustainable urban development. The conducted study was an important experience that enabled us to identify limitations of the metadata system describing the researched issues through keywords and the research tool employed in the BA (such as VOSviewer in this case) which may be the reason for the low quality of research results. During developing the presentation of the research results employing the VOSviewer software arose some doubts regarding the quality of the analysis of keywords defining the content of the studied articles. The keywords are defined by the authors of the articles to create a set of phrases adequate to the most important issues presented in the articles. During analyses with the use of VOSviewer software differences in the “construction” of phrases describing the same phenomenon were observed. For example, for the keyword “big data,” several forms of its notation were used in the analyzed articles (e.g., “big-data,” “Big Data,” “BD,” “Big-Data,” etc.). The analysis of the occurrence of these keywords reveals the importance of each of them separately in the analyzed set of keywords and allows the presentation of the results in a graphic form on the keywords map; however, the actual significance of the “big data” phenomenon within the studied context due to various ways of notation of the big data keyword in sets of articles’ keywords is assessed incorrectly. This means that the analyzed data concerning one phenomenon are scattered over the keywords’ map because of various ways of their notation. Finally, the graphical presentation of keyword occurrences may become illegible (many words with the same meaning being notated differently on the map) and incorrect (no information about the real significance of the phenomenon described by many keywords notated differently). The result of this may be conclusions that take into account only those keywords that are most often found in articles in one specific form (e.g., “big data”). Certainly, mistakes can be avoided by a thorough analysis of all keywords and grouping them by researchers with the use of the expert method. In the authors’ view, avoiding this type of deformation of research results would be possible either by introducing standardization of the notation of keywords in scientific articles or by enabling the grouping of keywords with the same meaning but with a different notation with a full range of possibilities for further analyses of data groups in BA software. The introduction of keyword standardization would require joint long-term efforts of scientific publishers and scientists, which is rather unlikely. It seems more realistic to introduce appropriate changes to the BA software, which using text mining algorithms would make it possible to standardize the spelling of keywords with the same meaning.

Conclusions The main purpose of the work, which results are presented in this chapter, was to identify the state of research on the use of ICT for sustainable development,

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especially those which are described as emerging. The main conclusions referring to the established goals are as follows: 1. The number of research on emerging ICT for sustainability is constantly growing. Almost half of the research has been described in works published in the last five years. The greatest interest in research in the above scope was observed in the USA and China. 2. The most often described emerging ICT in the literature are big data analytics (including related data analytics, data mining, and business analytics), the IoT, cloud computing, AI, and blockchain. 3. In the context of sustainability or sustainable development, the same emerging ICT as above is most often studied. 4. Smart cities and environmental or ecological sustainability were definitely the most frequently studied areas of emerging ICT applications in the sustainable development context (several times more often described than other issues). In the context of sustainability, the issues related to corporations, tourism, supply chain, agriculture, finance or reporting, economic sustainability, and sustainable urban development were examined relatively often (at least in 19 articles). Other sustainability-driven issues regarding transport, production or manufacturing, management, education, mobility, energy, and information society were described in less than 15 papers. 5. The most frequently explored research area related to broadly understood ICT/IT/IS (not narrowed down to “emerging”) in the sustainability context is geographical information systems which are described in 1,522 articles. Other ICT/IT/IS research fields, exploited relatively often, included smart cities (347 papers), green technology (340) and healthcare and e-health (220), knowledge management (180), electronic government and administration (154), and electronic business (101). The fewest articles were devoted to digital activities or solutions (88), the internet or web (75) and management information systems (75), electronic education (67), and information society or knowledge society (40). As a result of the conducted research, the importance of ICT/IT/IS, in particular, those identified as “emerging” was recognized in various areas of SD, and research gaps in this area were demonstrated. The contribution to the science of this study consists in providing a holistic view of research on emerging ICT/IT/IS applied to all sustainability areas. Previous research has focused on a specific area of sustainable development. Additionally, this research allowed us to identify 12 groups of widely understood ICT/IT/IS in various branches, industries, or services, which were described in a sustainability context. The presented results have practical implications for scientists. They indicate relatively well-described areas of sustainability in which emerging ICT is used, and those where little research has been conducted so far or are completely neglected. The developed research procedure also makes a merit-based contribution to the theory in the methodology context. The authors are aware of the limitations of the research presented and recognize them especially in:

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1. Limiting the research data sources to the Web of Science database only; 2. Focusing the BA on keywords, neither other metadata were analyzed to a wider extent (ex. authors, time ranges, or countries) nor citations were taken into account; 3. The preliminary nature of the research, which results in generalizing the results rather than detailed studies of the scope and structure of the data (i.e., lack of detailed results regarding the share of specific ICT in individual SD areas or research results of those SD areas where specific ICT are used). The findings of this study may constitute a recommendation and be the basis for further research. The authors themselves fill inspired to undertake further research that would take into account other bibliographic databases, such as Scopus or Google Scholar, and would aim to 1) determine what specific emerging ICT are dominant in each of the indicated areas of sustainability and 2) identify the areas in which specific emerging ICT are used.

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CHAPTER

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Analysis of Frameworks for the Integration of Information and Communication Technology into Sustainability Adam Sadowski1* and Beata Skowron-Grabowska2 1 2

Faculty of Management, Lodz University, Poland; [email protected] Faculty of Management, Czestochowa University of Technology, Poland; [email protected]

Introduction The dynamic development of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has created unlimited implementation possibilities for system solutions that are used in social and economic systems supporting sustainable development. A key issue for supporting sustainability is understanding how information flows can shift the balance of control of the economy. A global outlook on the changes taking place in the world economy shows that of all the ICT aspects, mobile phones and the internet are the two sectors with the highest growth rate (Chen et al. 2007). In a sustainable information society (SIS), the emergence of information technologies and services should, with the support of other technologies, lead to the “dematerialization” of production and the “immaterialization” of consumption (Heinonen et al. 2001). One of the key results of the popularization of ICTs in SIS is an increase in the level of ecological transparency, which is closely linked with the concept of the “ecological footprint.” The ecological footprint includes three groups of indicators i.e., environmental pressures, environmental conditions, and societal responses, which holistically describe the co-evolution of human and natural systems. Synergistic effects between ICT and sustainability, as confirmed by numerous studies, occur if systemic approaches are introduced at all levels. Systemic approaches involve the efforts of governments, civil societies, and businesses alike and depend heavily on policy-making processes (Taghavi et al. 2014). This applies to implementing urban projects and developing sustainable urban regeneration models *Corresponding author: [email protected]

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aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions in urban areas (Garcia-Fuentes and Torre 2017). Bibliometric analysis is a rigorous method for processing, exploring, and analyzing large volumes of scientific data. It enables us to present transparent evolutionary nuances of a specific field, as well as discover the existing gap in both research and newly developing areas of research conducted by scientists. Although it is widely used in many fields of knowledge, its application in business research is relatively new and, in many instances, underdeveloped. The essence of this analysis is to reveal the existing relationships between many variables that are included in the bibliometric descriptions of scientific publications. This applies to the existing links between authors, institutions, countries, and institutions financing research. Such mapping of the intellectual structure gives a relatively clear scientific landscape in a given field of knowledge. In our research, we used one of two categories of bibliometric analysis techniques i.e., science mapping, which focuses on the relationships between research constituents (Donthu et al. 2021). The chapter presents an assessment of the research area, taking into account more than 600 published articles on ICT and sustainability. Using rigorous bibliometric tools (e.g., citation and co-citation analyses), clusters describing the current research achievements and the future potential direction of changes in ICT research in sustainability have been identified.

Integrating ICT into Sustainability Studies Multidimensionality of sustainability has been a special feature since 1987 when the final report of the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), entitled Our Common Future (or Brundtland Report), provided the widely-held definition of sustainable development viz. a “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Drexhage and Murphy 2010). The sustainability discourse is based on the idea of three overlapping pillars: environment, economy, and social development. Sustainability is often considered an environmental issue, although its cognitive scope within sustainability studies is much broader. A generic path to sustainability refers to stimulating people to evolve toward more sustainable practices and behaviors. As a result, there are many stimulants and their combinations that change people’s behaviors on an individual level. These changes are the basis for the creation of sustainable societies, beginning at the local level, such as in a smart city, and then extending to national and global scales. The term sustainability has not yet been synthesized among academics. Instead, a more descriptive approach to defining it has emerged in the discourse. Elkington (1999) pointed out that a general sustainability strategy has often been described as satisfying the triple bottom line. This definition refers to simultaneously enhancing economic prosperity, environmental protection, and social equity. Ehrenfeld (2007) offered the following definition: “Sustainability is the possibility that humans and other forms of life will flourish on the planet forever. A use of natural resources and cycles does not lead to diminished quality of life due either to losses in future

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economic opportunities or to adverse impacts on social conditions, human health, and the environment.” Sustainability is also defined concerning industrial systems, as a “design of human and industrial systems to ensure that humankind’s use of natural resources and cycles do not lead to diminished quality of life due either to losses in future economic opportunities or to adverse impacts on social conditions, human health and the environment” (Mihelcic et al. 2003). The role of ICT in sustainable development strategies has been widely discussed since the transfer of technology to business and the everyday life of the world’s inhabitants, which fundamentally changed these technologies. The benefits of ICT applications seem to have no limits, which is due to their continuous improvement and their short life cycle that leads to the constant replacement of older technologies with newer ones. The unique nature of ICT is formed dynamically through interaction with institutional systems, whereas their development takes place in a self-propagating manner. The term “ICT” is used for products, such as information technology apparatus, communications apparatus, and software (Zhao et al. 2022). ICT is defined as tools used to facilitate production, transmission, and information processing. ICT may be divided into two groups: traditional technologies and modern technologies (Saidi et al. 2020).

Description of Literature Review Study The bibliometric methodology is based on the use of quantitative techniques (i.e., bibliometric analysis, citation analysis) on bibliometric data (e.g., units of publication and citation). There are many definitions of bibliometrics available, formulated from the perspective of various fields of knowledge. White and McCain (1989) presented the evolutionary changes that took place in the definition of bibliometrics, proposing to define it as “the quantitative study of literatures as they are reflected in bibliographies. Its task, immodestly enough, is to provide evolutionary models of science, technology, and scholarship.” The development of bibliometrics is inextricably linked to the increase in the number of publications available for analysis in such databases as Scopus, IEEE Xplore, Taylor, and Francis Online, or Web of Science (WoS). Although the available databases differ in coverage of a given field of knowledge, it is important to pay attention to the differences that can significantly affect the result of the analysis at the stage of choosing a database for analysis. Another quantitative approach, similar to the bibliometric analysis, is used in a meta-analysis, which also processes large collections of literature and provides a nuanced summary of a given field (Junni et al. 2013). However, in the case of a very diverse and heterogeneous intellectual structure of existing research, the use of meta-analysis can lead to erroneous results. Therefore, in our research, due to the heterogeneous and multidimensional nature of research in the area of ICT and sustainability, we opted for the bibliometric analysis. Along with the development of bibliometrics, open-source bibliometric software such as Gephi, Leximancer, VOSviewer, Pajek, RStudio, Sci2, or CiteSpace has been created, which allows for the analysis of large bibliometric datasets (Aria and Cuccurullo 2017; Xu et al. 2018). Due to the ease of obtaining data for bibliometric

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analysis and, on the other hand, the availability of software that is used to process and analyze these data, there is a significant increase in publications employing this methodology. In our study, the latest version of VOSviewer ver. 1.6.18 has been used to draw up bibliometric maps to present a network of dependencies occurring in a set of articles from the studied area. VOSviewer pays special attention to the graphical representation of large bibliometric maps in an easy-to-interpret way (Eck van and Waltman 2010). It facilitates downloading data from such databases as WoS, Scopus, Dimensions, Lens, and PubMed. Bibliometric methodology in the area of ICT and sustainability has thus far been used to a limited extent. The main reason for the existing gap in research using the bibliometric approach is the relatively short period during which research integrating conceptual models in these areas develops. The second reason is the limited number of peer-reviewed scientific publications that are required for clustering algorithms in available bibliometric tools. However, it is worth noting the use of systematic literature reviews, which require fewer publications in the analysis process. One of the few review studies is a systematic literature review presenting good teaching practices with ICT in higher education in Spain (Alonso-García et al. 2019). In our research, we have used a collection of articles to conduct a review of the past, present, and future of the ICT and sustainability research field. From the available analysis techniques, the following have been selected: co-citation analysis, bibliographic coupling, and co-word analysis (e.g., notable words in the implications and future research directions of full texts). We have employed a typical procedure involving four stages (Donthu et al. 2021): 1. 2. 3. 4.

Definition of the aims and scope of the bibliometric study. Selection of the techniques for bibliometric analysis. Collecting data for bibliometric analysis. Running the bibliometric analysis and reporting the findings.

The intellectual structure of research in the area of ICT and sustainability has been presented through science mapping in the form of visualization of existing dependencies in a set of articles using tables and figures. In our research, as a source of data for analysis, we used Scopus Elsevier’s abstract and citation database (www.scopus.com), which is treated as a neutral search engine for searching scholarly sources. It includes various types of documents and an analytical panel that allows for a preliminary assessment of the area of knowledge. The Scopus database is suitable for general-purpose scientific literature analysis including journal articles, conference proceedings, and books (De Moya-Anegón et al. 2007; Kumpulainen and Seppänen 2022). We have limited our research to articles published only in English. We have adopted the time range of the analysis for the years 2000–2022. Types of records such as conference papers, reviews, book chapters, conference reviews, books, editorials, errata, or notes have been removed. The results of the search show that there are 3,032 records in the database for the TITLE-ABS-KEY query (ICT OR “information and communication technology” and sustainable). The largest number

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of records is for the following subject areas: social sciences, environmental science, computer science, engineering and business, management, and accounting (Table 1). Table 1. Ten top subject areas in ICT and sustainability Rank

Subject Area

Number of Records

1

Social Sciences

1417

2

Environmental Science

840

3

Computer Science

835

4

Engineering

769

5

Business, Management, and Accounting

598

6

Energy

587

7

Economics, Econometrics, and Finance

242

8

Decision Sciences

166

9

Agricultural and Biological Sciences

151

Medicine

150

10

Subsequently, after a thorough screening of the article abstracts, only articles from the two subject areas, namely, business, management, and accounting and decision sciences have been qualified for the next stage. Our search results show that there are 656 articles published in these areas. For 656 articles, the total number of footnotes is 13,764, which demonstrates the size of intellectual achievements in the area of ICT and sustainability. Although among the footnotes there are also influential studies, articles, and books, they have not been included in the analysis. Figure 1 shows the yearly distribution of the bibliographic records of ICT and sustainability articles over 22 years. There is also a significant and stable increase in the number of articles, which began in 2010.

Figure 1. Distributions of bibliographic records of ICT and sustainability (01 January 2000 to 27 September 2022)

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In 2000, an article presented prospects for using new ICTs to support sustainable economic activity (Alexander 2000). This article is conceptual, adopting a biological metaphor to guide sustainability as the inference background. The starting point for linking ICTs and sustainability is to assume that “quite independently of any considerations of sustainability a decentralized communication and information system is developing which could and is being used to further sustainability issues” (Alexander 2000). The proposed broad and open conceptual framework later provided the possibility of developing discourse without strictly defined cognitive boundaries. To show the significant changes in the approach to ICT integration and sustainability, we have divided 22 years into two intervals that differ in the intensity of article growth. The first one (A) covers the years 2000–2010 and corresponds to the first research in the area of ICT integration and sustainability. The second one (B), covering the years 2011–2022, is characterized by a continuous increase in publications and a regular upward trend. Dividing a dataset into periods is commonly used in bibliometric research and allows for more accurate capture of publication trends. In our research, we have taken about a decade as the one in which changes in the development of the discipline are visible.

ICT into Sustainability Co-Word Clusters General View Figure 1 shows the overall upward trend in the number of articles published in the area of ICT integration and sustainability. The interesting aspect is the presentation of the most significant authors, institutions, and journals as well as the most cited authors and journals in the studied area. Table 2 presents the ten most important journals in which articles on ICT integration and sustainability have been published. During Period A, the largest number of articles was published in Futures (4) with a total of 95 articles, which is only 4% of all articles and proves the multifaceted nature of ICT integration and sustainability problems. In Period B, 9.1%, of all ICT and sustainability articles were published in the International Journal of Cleaner Production. Throughout the period 2000–2022 under study, there is a big change in the profile of journals that publish ICT and sustainability research articles. At the same time, nearly 18% of the latest research is concentrated in one of the three journals: Journal of Cleaner Production, Technological Forecasting, and Social Change and Technology in Society. This proves the wide thematic diversity of research and the complexity of ICT integration and sustainability. Table 3 presents the authors with the most articles between 2000 and 2022. The largest number of articles in Period A was published by six authors; while in Period B, the largest number of articles was published by Asongu, S.A. (7). At the same time, it is visible that these authors’ names are not repeated in the rankings, which is related to the diversity of knowledge development paths in the area of ICT and sustainability. The only author who appears twice in Periods A and B is Watanabe, C.

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Theoretical Issues on Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability Table 2. Top 10 most productive journals in ICT and sustainability

Rank

2000–2010 (95 papers)

2010–2022 (561 papers)

1

Futures

4

Journal of Cleaner Production

51

2

Technological Forecasting and Social Change

4

Technological Forecasting and Social Change

34

3

International Journal of Services Technology and Management

3

Technology in Society

14

4

International Journal of Technology Management

3

Cities

13

5

Foresight

2

Journal of Science and Technology Policy Management

8

6

IFIP International Federation for Information Processing

2

Quality Access to Success

8

7

Industry and Higher Education

2

Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues

7

8

International Journal of Foresight and Innovation Policy

2

IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management

7

9

International Journal of Production Economics

2

International Journal of Recent Technology and Engineering

7

10

International Journal of Sociotechnology and Knowledge Development

2

Transportation Research Part A Policy and Practice

7

Table 3. Most productive authors by the number of papers Rank

2000–2010

Documents

Rank

2011–2022

Documents

1

Ahmed, A.

2

1

Asongu, S.A.

7

1

Kumaraswamy, M.M.

2

2

Andreopoulou, Z.

5

1

Mohamed, M.

2

3

Bibri, S.E.

3

1

Ng, S.T.

2

3

Frew, A.J.

3

1

Rahman, M.M.

2

3

Gössling, S.

3

1

Watanabe, C.

2

3

Koliouska, C.

3

3

Krogstie, J.

3

3

Miah, S.J.

3

3

Mihardjo, L.W.W.

3

3

Neittaanmäki, P.

3

3

Pradhan, R.P.

3

3

Sasmoko

3

3

Shahbaz, M.

3

3

Watanabe, C.

3

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Co-Citation Analysis Document co-citation is based on the notion that two documents are cited together by another document and that the strength of the co-citation of the two documents increases together with the increase of the number of documents that cite these documents together (Small 1978). Co-citation relations serve as a fundamental grouping mechanism in co-citation studies referring to the past (Liu et al. 2013). To identify research clusters on ICT integration and sustainability, we have used co-citation analysis which is a widely accepted approach (Fahimnia et al. 2015). Co-citation analysis is a technique for science mapping that assumes publications that are cited together frequently are similar thematically. Since it focuses only on highly cited publications, co-citation analysis is useful for identifying the most important works in a given area of knowledge. Most often, these works are treated as a conceptual “foundation” for the development of a given field of knowledge. Co-citation analysis is used to analyze the relationships among cited publications to understand the development of the foundational themes in a research field. Table 4 presents the five most important articles in the entire collection of articles in the area of ICT and sustainability. It can be assumed that they have had a huge impact on the dynamics of the development of the intellectual structure, giving rise to various research paths, including niche ones. At the same time, in these articles, we can see the researchers’ focus on the concept of the smart city. This suggests that despite the available previous results of research describing the relationship between ICT and sustainability, it was only the focus on the transformation of cities into sustainable smart cities that had a huge impact on current research paths. Table 4. Top 5 cited ICT and sustainability papers Rank References

Title

Number of Citations

1

Hollands 2020

Will the real smart city please stand up? Intelligent, progressive, or entrepreneurial?

17

2

Neirotti et al. 2014

Current trends in smart city initiatives: Some stylized facts

16

3

Ahvenniemi et al. 2017

What are the differences between sustainable and smart cities?

12

4

Caragliu et al. 2013

Smart cities in Europe

11

5

Albino et al. 2015

Smart cities: Definitions, Dimensions, Performance, and Initiatives

10

Bibliographic Coupling The bibliographic coupling technique is based on the assumption that two publications that share common references are similar in content (Kessler 1963; Weinberg 1974). This approach makes it possible to visualize recent research results that still have no greater impact on a given area of knowledge. They refer to the latest scientific research findings in the discipline (Bretas and Alon 2021). The results of

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this analysis provide thematic clusters that are based on those publications that share bibliographical citations. In contrast to co-citation analysis, they show a more up-todate representation of the research field. It is assumed that bibliographic coupling is a representation of current research, showing research paths and trends that can be found in the current scientific discourse. Figure 2 shows bibliographic coupling for articles relating to ICT and sustainability with a minimum citation count of 30.

Figure 2. Bibliographic coupling documents

The analysis proved that the article (Hamari et al. 2016) entitled “The Sharing Economy: Why People Participate in Collaborative Consumption” has the highest number of citations (1,583). The next most important articles in the discourse refer to such areas as frameworks for building a smart city (Lee et al. 2014) (475), emerging themes in management control (Berry et al. 2009) (246), and ICT and financial access (Tchamyou et al. 2019) (223). The number of citations is given in parentheses.

Co-word Analysis The co-word analysis aims to draw the conceptual structure of a framework using a word co-occurrence network to map and cluster terms extracted from keywords, titles, or abstracts in a bibliographic collection. An important aspect of the obtained results of the co-word analysis is the origin of words that can be taken for analysis from “author keywords,” “keywords,” “article titles,” “abstracts” and even “full text.” Unlike citation, co-citation analysis, and bibliographic coupling, this analysis is not directed at the relationships between articles but is limited to detecting relationships between words. It is oriented on the very content of the article, using, for instance, “Authors’ keywords.” The assumptions of co-word analysis are similar to co-citation analysis and bibliographic coupling. The subject of the analysis is to investigate the existing relationships among topics in a research field by focusing on the written content of the publication itself (Khan et al. 2021; Liu et al. 2019). Co-word analysis is used to determine future directions of research in a given field, assuming that the

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words that makeup clusters combine to create a kind of unique “content” referring to the specifics of the research. Co-word analysis also has some imperfections. These include mainly those related to the fact that some words are very general, e.g., “ICT” or “sustainability,” and occur in a very large number of articles in contexts not related to a given area of knowledge. As a consequence, clustering algorithms can assign them to several thematic clusters. In our research concerning co-word analysis, we have used the authors’ keywords that best reflect the substantive content of the articles. Figure 3 shows the visualization of keywords for the thematic area of ICT and sustainability.

Figure 3. Co-word ICT and sustainability

The keyword frequency analysis was performed for the entire set of keywords (3,732 words) in the article collection. After setting the parameter of the occurrence of a word in the set to a minimum of six, we obtained a total of 139 keywords. The visualization shows five color-coded thematic clusters. The most common keywords in the set of all documents are “sustainable development” (184), “information and communication technology” (120), “information and communication technologies” (101), “ICT” (90), “smart city” (60), and “innovation” (55). The frequency of occurrence of a given word in the whole set is given in parentheses.

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Cluster C1: ‘ICT Supporting Sustainable Development’ The lower left cluster includes articles that present a multifaceted impact of ICT on various areas of social and economic activity from the perspective of sustainability. This applies to a broad view of not only society and institutions but also companies that implement sustainable ICT. The impact of ICT on social sustainability is aimed at reducing and eliminating the digital divide. “Digital divide” is understood as “the gap in society between those who are or are not connected to the internet and active users of digital technologies” (Gaved and Mulholland 2010). Overcoming the digital divide should take into account the benefits of the locality-based approach. This confirms a broad range of grassroots ICT activism, which sometimes occurs in parallel to or precedes large-scale policy interventions. Thanks to the unique features resulting from the use of ICT, networked communities have a natural ability to support sustainable development. A natural and common approach to supporting sustainable development through ICT is the implementation of projects. Results of the case studies on rural ICT prove that there are several constraints that threaten the sustainability of rural ICT projects (Pade-Khene et al. 2011). These constraints result directly from the rural environment; in particular, they are related to rural society and economic and technological issues that influence the sustainability of an ICT project. A critical factor for the success of these projects is their initiation with a pilot project in the rural community. The achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is based on the use of the ICT framework comprising six approaches, which are the holistic approach, governance-enhanced approach, increased-awareness approach, data-intensive approach, two-way approach, and responsible approach (Kostoska and Kocarev 2019). Ultimately, research findings indicate that ICT quality, ICT management, but also information culture have a significant impact on sustainability in the sustainable information society (SIS). The adoption of ICT by enterprises is a multi-area construct and leads to ecological sustainability, economic sustainability, sociocultural sustainability, and political sustainability (Ziemba 2019). Cluster C2 ‘Digital Transformation Toward Sustainability’ The middle left cluster focuses on the problems of digital transformation, which is present in all spheres of social and economic activity. The digital transformation of society is made possible by good teaching practices with ICT, which are the basic link between ICT and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) contained in the Sustainable Development Agenda of the United Nations for the year 2030 (AlonsoGarcía et al. 2019). Industry 4.0 technologies, which provide critical perspectives for future innovation and business growth, are of great importance for digital transformation. Technologies 4.0 include primarily Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), big data, and machine learning (ML) but also other advanced technologies entering the market. Research results indicate that Industry 4.0 has significant achievements in creating a sustainable environment in such areas as smart production, water industry, energy consumption reduction, transparency of information, air quality improvement, and supply chain interconnection. Achieving environmental

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sustainability is fostered by sustainable culture facilitating the adaptation of Industry 4.0 technologies and, in the future, also Industry 5.0 relating to human-machine connectivity and cooperation (Javaid et al. 2022; Lange et al. 2020). Research paths in this cluster cover a wide range of topics, listing sustainable tourism, e-commerce, cultural heritage, business, marketing, and social media (Fuchs 2008; Gössling and Hall 2019; Misso et al. 2018; Van Nederveen and Gielingh 2009). However, the results of the research and the insights formulated on their basis emphasize the importance of the “sharing and collaborative economy” in achieving SDGs. Cluster C3 ‘Sustainable Governance and ICT Integration’ The third cluster, located in the middle upper part of the map, marks the research line focused on the integration of ICT into sustainable governance. Implemented green projects, especially in developing countries, prove that ICT reduces information asymmetry associated with environmental pollution. There are two main research perspectives in this cluster, relating to the sectoral, national, and regional levels at which conceptual models using econometric modeling are developed (Erlinghagen and Markard 2012; Danish et al. 2019). Research related to ICT penetration in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) was conducted to determine the impact of environmental sustainability on CO2 emissions. In these studies, empirical evidence is based on the Generalized Method of Moments. The results for 44 countries for the period 2000 to 2012 suggest that ICT (i.e., mobile phones and the internet) does not significantly affect CO2 emissions. Moreover, using interactive regressions, it has been proven that the increase in ICT has a positive net effect on CO2 emissions per capita while increasing mobile phone penetration alone has a net negative effect on CO2 emissions from liquid fuel consumption (Asongu et al. 2018). In research on the effects of ICT on energy efficiency and environmental sustainability in emerging Asian economies from 1990 to 2019, as in former studies, two variables for ICT: proxies, namely, broadband subscriptions (internet) and mobile cellular subscriptions (mobile) were adopted (Zhao et al. 2022). They showed that the internet and mobile have a reduced impact on carbon emissions in the long run. As a result, they prove that ICT infrastructure implementation in the public sector can considerably alleviate the degradation of the environment. The complex and ambiguous nature of ICT’s impact on ecological degradation and economic growth has been confirmed in numerous studies (Shobande and Ogbeifun 2022; Yao et al. 2009). Bhujabal (2021) presented a network view of the relationship between environmental pollution and ICT, foreign direct investments (FDI) inflows, economic growth, financial development, capital formation, population, and international trade. Cluster C4 ‘Trends and Challenges in Green ICT’ The upper left cluster encompasses research focused on new “areas” of green ICT integration into sustainable development. These include agriculture, blockchain, green computing, healthcare, and technology transfer. Green ICT technologies in the

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Theoretical Issues on Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability

agricultural sector are referred to as “AgInformatics” systems. They are the subject of huge investments by multinationals, such as Dow AgroSciences, Deere Co, and Monsanto. Nevertheless, research results suggest that ICTs in the agricultural sector can have both positive and negative impacts related to sustainability in agro-food systems. The ICT deployment induces far-reaching changes that impact individuals, societies, and the environment, which is related to the emergence of new types of farms and precision farming (El and Sadegh 2018; Lindblom et al. 2017). A systematic literature review on ML applications for sustainable agriculture supply chain performance conducted by (Sharma et al. 2020) presents machine learning (ML) algorithms that are used in subsequent stages of production in agriculture. In terms of using ICT services, the healthcare sector is also included in the new research areas (Taghavi et al. 2014). It is considered from the perspective of using smart computing technologies to make the critical infrastructure components and services of healthcare more intelligent, interconnected, and efficient (Hoon et al. 2014). The healthcare sector is also included in the most common data-centric applications using big data technology (Bibri 2019). Cluster C5 ‘ICT Driven Smart Cities Development and Urban Sustainability’ The last cluster, located in the lower right corner of the map, comprises research aimed at the comprehensive application of ICT in cities in the context of their transformation under the assumptions of the smart city concept. The term “smart city” was first used in the 1990s and, at the time, was oriented toward the significance of new ICT concerning modern infrastructures within cities. The California Institute for Smart Communities was one of the pioneering academic centers that drew attention to the issue of how communities could become smart and how a city could be designed to implement information technologies (Albino et al. 2015). Later, a critical discourse on the smart city concept emerged, emphasizing its overly technical orientation instead of a strong governance-oriented approach that stresses the role of social capital and relations in urban development. At a conceptual level, the smart city has been treated as a means of achieving sustainability by leveraging the advancements in ICT (Stratigea et al. 2015; Aina 2017; Stratigea et al. 2015). The development of smart cities is related to the implementation of various technologies, such as Geoinformation and Communication Technology (GeoICT) (Aina 2017), nanotechnology (integrated circuits, electronic device manufacturing, displays and graphene, data storage, thermoelectricity for energy harvesting, and photonics) (Markovic et al. 2012), smart energy systems (Mathiesen et al. 2015), and those included in the aforementioned concept of Industry 4.0. In addition to the discourse focused on technology, a second research trend is also developing, emphasizing the impact of ICT on social sustainability. It recognizes community engagement practices and digital citizen participation as one of key components of the social sustainability of smart cities (Bouzguenda et al. 2019). In conclusion, it should be noted that the study of five thematic clusters showed different methodological approaches and conceptual models in research on ICT integration and sustainability. The first of the highlighted clusters is general and touches on the problems of ICT’s impact on sustainable development and the ability

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to achieve its objectives (SDGs). The remaining clusters refer to more thematically oriented research pathways. The second cluster presents the ongoing process of digital transformation and its multifaceted impact on sustainability. The third cluster stands out from the others due to its methodological approach based on econometric modeling of the relationships between ICT and sustainable development. The research in this cluster is carried out mainly at the level of macroeconomic analyses. The subsequent fourth cluster shows the existing potential, trends, and challenges for the development and diffusion of green ICT in the cross-section of new application areas. Finally, the fifth cluster refers to ICT research in sustainable smart cities. It is both conceptual and tool-oriented, indicating the transfer of technology in the context of various types of sustainability.

Conclusions Our study shows frameworks for the integration of information and communication technology into sustainability. This fast-growing area of research combines two dynamically changing fields of knowledge: ICT and sustainability studies. A novelty of the research presented is the outline of the theoretical framework for research sub-areas which are of great interest to researchers studying the integration of ICTs and their integration into sustainability and sustainable development. The conducted research proves the global penetration and transfer of technology to key areas of social activity in society. Although the orientation toward the latest technologies, such as AI, ML, IoT, or Industry 4.0, is visible in many projects aimed at achieving SDGs, it remains in line with concepts such as sharing or collaborative economy. Previous qualitative research in the area of ICT integration and integration into sustainability has focused on a narrow range of issues. Systematic literature reviews concerned Third-Party Logistics Service Providers, ML applications for sustainable agriculture supply chain performance, smart grids and the transformation of the electricity sector, smart sustainable cities, digitalization, and sustainability (Bouzguenda et al. 2019; Del Río Castro et al. 2021; Evangelista et al. 2018; Sharma et al. 2020). The bibliometric analysis carried out allowed for a broad and comprehensive definition of the framework for ICT integration and sustainability without focusing on specific issues. As a result of the bibliometric analysis, owing to the mapping algorithm, a cocitation map distinguishing five thematic clusters was obtained. This confirms that there is a separation of the main research trends in such a diverse area combining two key issues from the perspective of social development. Figure 3 shows a co-citation map on which the interpenetration of clusters, especially clusters 1 and 2, is visible. This phenomenon should be assessed in the category of dynamic growth of innovative concepts and the expansion of the transfer of ICT technologies to new fields in which the interest in sustainability is on the rise. The multifaceted nature of ICT integration and its integration into sustainable development is also confirmed in the case of other clusters for which the dividing lines are blurred. The reason is a broad complex of issues considered within the framework of sustainable development connecting and interpenetrating each other. Our observations prove that the current theoretical

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framework reflected in scientific articles from 2000 to 2022 for ICT integration and sustainability is immature and fluid. This is the stage of shaping a more general and universal theoretical framework covering all issues related to the application of ICT in a sustainable systemic transformation. This suggests an increase in scientific articles in the period under study, especially in period B, starting in 2011. The latest articles are concentrated in one of the three journals: Journal of Cleaner Production, Technological Forecasting, and Social Change and Technology in Society. In the years 2000 to 2010 (Period A), the key places of publication were journals focused on future research, such as Futures or Foresight, which initiated the discourse on ICT integration and sustainability. The study also showed a more than five-fold increase in the number of published articles in Period B (561) compared to Period A (95). This is related to the specificity of ICT technologies themselves, the mechanism of their creation, and high innovation with a relatively short life cycle. As a consequence, ICT enables a broader view of sustainability, and the use of ML enables the creation of intelligent autonomous sustainable solutions. Our research on intellectual structure in the area of ICT and sustainability has limitations resulting from bibliometric methods. One of the fundamental issues, widely discussed in academia, is the quality of the article database which is the input for the mapping algorithm and consequent mapping. The co-word analysis is performed for keywords without contextualizing their use. Detachment of keywords from the context in which they are used can be an important source of inaccuracies in bibliometric analysis. However, commonly used software does not have an algorithm that would take into account the context in which a given word was used. The bibliometric analysis, despite the indicated imperfections, is increasingly used by researchers in the context of the increment in the number of scientific publications and their availability as part of open-access publishing.

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Mapping Areas of ICT Application for Sustainable Management Justyna Szydłowska* and Jakub Swacha University of Szczecin, Department of IT in Management, ul. Cukrowa 8, 71–004 Szczecin, Poland; [email protected]; [email protected]

Introduction UNESCO Institute for Statistics defines Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) as “a diverse set of technological tools and resources used to transmit, store, create, share or exchange information” (UNESCO Institute for Statistics 2009). At the beginning of this century, leveraging such technologies for the sake of transforming various business processes gained the term “digitalization” with the key relevant technologies being social media, mobile, artificial intelligence, and cloud; also known by the acronym “SMAC.” As time passed, the extent of digitalization expanded in most sectors of the industry as well as in the public sector, impacting the business operations of all kinds of organizations. This is associated with the lean toward more sustainable business operations (Wynn 2022), especially in the ecological and economic aspects of sustainability (Brenner and Hartl 2021). This connection paves the way for the adoption of ICT for sustainable management, understood as “a form of management, which clearly states that enhancing the value of a business is not simply about continuously increasing revenues and profits, but also about reconciling the economic goals of a business with environmental and social issues in an ethically correct way” (Daub and Ergenzinger 2005). Although the adoption of ICT for sustainable management continues to expand into new areas of activity each year as sustainability awareness grows, so far there has been no dedicated survey to map this development. Such a survey could identify areas that are receiving the most attention as well as highlight the blank spots that have received little interest so far. This chapter aims at addressing this gap by analyzing prior literature to identify the points of ICT application for sustainable management, considering three dimensions *Corresponding author: [email protected]

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i.e., business activity areas, functional management areas, and geographic areas. The following research questions have therefore been stated: 1. In which business activity areas was the adoption of ICT for sustainable management most frequently reported? 2. Which of the management functions were most often reported to be supported by the adoption of ICT for sustainable management? 3. In which geographic areas the organizations adopting ICT for sustainable management were most often reported to operate?

Identification of Relevant Publications In order to achieve the presented research objectives, a systematic literature review was conducted. Three large global bibliographic data providers were selected: Scopus, Web of Science (core collection), and Proquest (all databases). The search for relevant publications was performed using the following query phrases: • Scopus: TITLE ( ( ”Information and Communication Technologies” OR ”Information Technologies” OR ”ICT adoption” OR ”IT adoption” OR ”Information Systems” OR ”software” ) AND ( sustainable AND management ) ) OR AUTHKEY ( ( ”Information and Communication Technologies” OR ”Information Technologies” OR ”ICT adoption” OR ”IT adoption” OR ”Information Systems” OR ”software” ) AND ( sustainable AND management ) ) • Web of Science: ((TI=((“Information and Communication Technologies” OR “Information Technologies” OR “ICT adoption” OR “IT adoption” OR “Information Systems” OR “software”) AND (sustainable management))) OR AK=((“Information and Communication Technologies” OR “Information Technologies” OR “ICT adoption” OR “IT adoption” OR “Information Systems” OR “software”) AND (sustainable management))) • Proquest: TI((“Information and Communication Technologies” OR “Information Technologies” OR “ICT adoption” OR “IT adoption” OR “Information Systems” OR “software”) AND (sustainable management)) OR IF((“Information and Communication Technologies” OR “Information Technologies” OR “ICT adoption” OR “IT adoption” OR “Information Systems” OR “software”) AND (sustainable management)) Moreover, for all data sources, the analyzed time frame was limited to years between 2018 and 2022. In total, 230 publications were retrieved i.e., 110 from

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Scopus, 41 from Web of Science, and 79 from Proquest. The results were combined, and all duplicates were eliminated (i.e., papers indexed by more than one database or those erroneously indexed more than once in a single database), resulting in a set of 163 unique publications. After filtering out publications having document types other than published articles or book chapters, 108 have remained of which three were not available in full text. The remaining 105 publications were screened with four found to be not in English language (despite being indexed with English language metadata) and 49 were found to be off-topic (despite matching the search terms). The remaining 52 publications underwent an analysis, and the results of this analysis will be discussed in the following section. The whole publication selection process is presented in Figure 1, whereas all identified relevant publications are listed in Table 1.

Figure 1. The flow of publication selection

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Mapping Areas of ICT Application for Sustainable Management Table 1. List of identified relevant publications Year

Authors

2022

Nadeem, M.A. et al.

A Comparison of Recent Requirements Gathering and Management Tools in Requirements Engineering for IoT-Enabled Sustainable Cities

Qualitative comparison

2022

Zampou, E. et al.

A Design Theory for Energy and Carbon Management Systems in the Supply Chain

Design science

2019

Tiganoaia, B. et al.

A New Sustainable Model for Risk Management-RiMM

Case study

2021

Chen, Y. and Liu, X.

A Study on the Marketing Strategy of Regional Characteristic Tourism From the Perspective of New Media

Case study

2020

Dasović, B. et al.

A Survey on Integration of Optimization and Project Management Tools for Sustainable Construction Scheduling

Survey

2020

da Fonseca, E.P.R. et al.

Agro 4.0: A Data Science-Based Information System for Sustainable Agroecosystem Management

Case study

2020

Eghtesadifard, M.A. et al.

An Integrated Approach to the Selection of Municipal Solid Waste Landfills Through GIS, K-Means, and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis

Case study

2019

Purdy, A.J. et al.

An Open-Source Tool to Facilitate the Processing of GRACE Observations and GLDAS Outputs: An Evaluation in Bangladesh

Observation

2022

Mattioli, W. et al.

Assessing Forest Accessibility for the Multifunctional Management of Protected Areas in Central Italy

Case study

2020

Szafranska, B. et al.

Building a Spatial Information Design science System to Support the Development of Agriculture in Poland and Ukraine

2021

Zieja, M. et al.

Computer Lifecycle Management System for Avionics Software as a Tool for Supporting the Sustainable Development of Air Transport

Design science

2019

Khaiter, P.A.; Erechtchoukova, M.G.

Conceptualizing an Environmental Software Modeling Framework for Sustainable Management Using UML

Design science

Title

Primary Method

(Contd.)

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Theoretical Issues on Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability Table 1. (Contd.)

Year

Authors

Title

Primary Method

2020

Pinna, A. et al.

Design of a Sustainable BlockchainOriented Software for Building Workers’ Management

Design science

2019

Baykasoğlu, A. et al.

Development of a Web-Based Decision Support System for Strategic and Tactical Sustainable Fleet Management Problems in Intermodal Transportation Networks

Case study

2022

Al-Noaimi, M.A.

Development of Water Information System for the Kingdom of Bahrain

Design science

2019

Bahrami, S. et al.

Enabling the Diffusion of Sustainable Product Innovations in BIM Library Platforms

Qualitative research

2018

Önden, İ. et al.

Evaluation of the Logistics Center Locations Using a Multi-Criteria Spatial Approach

Case study

2021

Stroumpoulis, A. et al.

Examining the Relationship Between Qualitative Information Systems, Sustainable research SCM, and Competitive Advantage

2020

Li, J. et al.

How do Partners Benefit From IT Use in Supply Chain Management: An Empirical Study of Taiwan’s Bicycle Industry

Survey

2021

Yıldırım, Ü.

Identification of Groundwater Potential Zones Using GIS and Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Techniques: A Case Study Upper Coruh River Basin (ne Turkey)

Case study

2021

Mandičák, T. et al.

Impact of Information and Communication Technology on Sustainable Supply Chain and Cost Reducing of Waste Management in Slovak Construction

Survey

2020

Kim, S. et al.

Impacts of Sustainable Information Technology Capabilities on Information Security Assimilation: The Moderating Effects of PolicyTechnology Balance

Survey

2022

Kamenska, L. et al.

Implementation of Distributed Information Systems in Solving Problems of Energy Consumption Monitoring

Design science

73

Mapping Areas of ICT Application for Sustainable Management 2019

Yang, Z. et al.

Informal Alignment in Digital Innovation for Corporate Sustainability

Survey

2020

Sharples, J. et al.

Information Systems for sustainable management of Groundwater Extraction in France and Australia

Literature review

2018

Khuntia, J. et al.

Information Technology and Sustainability: Evidence From an Emerging Economy

Survey

2020

Nomani, M.Z.M. and Hussain, Z.

Innovation Technology in Healthcare Literature Management in the Context of review Indian Environmental Planning and Sustainable Development

2019

De Camargo Fiorini, P. et al.

Interplay Between Information Systems and Environmental Management in ISO 14001-Certified Companies: Implications for Future Research on Big Data

Case study

2022

Sharma, Y.K. and Sharma, S.

IT Success Factors in Sustainable Food Supply Chain Management

Case study

2022

Nupap, S.

Knowledge Management System by Applying Knowledge Creating Company: Transforming Tacit to Explicit Knowledge

Case study

2019

Li, Q. et al.

Management System of Integration of Informatization and Industrialization: Gb/T 23000 Serial Chinese National Standards

Case study

2021

Thorpe, D. et al..

Managing Sustainable Asset Networks Using Advanced Information Systems

Literature review

2021

Djalic, N. et al.

Modeling the Influence of Information Systems on Sustainable Business Performance and Competitiveness

Survey

2021

Akindele, B.O. et al.

Needs Analysis for a CommunityBased Electronic Learning Management Ecosystem

Qualitative research

2022

Li, X.Z. et al.

OSSARA: Abandonment Risk Assessment for Embedded Open Source Components

Case study

2018

Yang, Z.J. et al.

Peas and Carrots Just Because They are Green? Operational Fit Between Green Supply Chain Management and Green Information System

Survey

(Contd.)

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Theoretical Issues on Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability Table 1. (Contd.)

Year

Authors

Title

Primary Method

2021

Keerthi, A.M. et al.

Pharmaceutical Management Information Systems: A Sustainable Computing Paradigm in the Pharmaceutical Industry and Public Health Management

Case study

2022

Tatari, M. et al.

Review of Smart Building Management System

Literature review

2020

Mandal, S. and Dubey, R.K.

Role of Tourism IT Adoption and Risk Management Orientation on Tourism Agility and Resilience: Impact on Sustainable Tourism Supply Chain Performance

Survey

2021

Yechuri, P.K. and Ramadass, S.

Semantic Web Mining for Analyzing Experiment Retail Environment Using Word2Vec and CNN-FK

2021

da Silva, L.C.P. et al.

Software Toolchain to Enhance the Management and Integration of a Sustainable Campus Model

Design science

2022

Kaur, J. et al.

Strategic Direction of Information Technology on Sustainable Supply Chain Practices: Exploratory Case Study on Fashion Industry in Malaysia

Case study

2021

Mandičák, T. et al.

Supply Chain Management and Big Data Concept Effects on Economic Sustainability of Building Design and Project Planning

Survey

2022

Aké, K.M.H. et al.

Sustainable Development and Qualitative Stakeholder Engagement in the Agri- research Food Sector: Exploring the Nexus Between Biodiversity Conservation and Information Technology

2022

Fu, Q. et al.

Sustainable Supply Chain and Business Performance: The Impact of Strategy, Network Design, Information Systems, and Organizational Structure

Survey

2019

Kościelniak, H. et al.

The Application of Information Technologies in Consideration of Augmented Reality and Lean Management of Enterprises in the Light of Sustainable Development

Case study

75

Mapping Areas of ICT Application for Sustainable Management 2020

Ditkaew, K. et al.

The Causal Structural Relationships Between Accounting Information System Quality, Supply Chain Management Capability, and Sustainable Competitive Advantages of Maize

Survey

2019

Vladimirtsev, A.V. et al.

The Experience of FSC Standard Implementation as Lead Component of Automated Systems for the Forestry Management

Case study

2018

Torres, A.I. et al.

The Impact of Knowledge Management Factors in Organizational Sustainable Competitive Advantage

Survey

2020

SpychalskaWojtkiewicz, M.

The Relation Between Sustainable Development Trends and Customer Value Management

Survey

2021

Massarelli, C. et al.

Toward Sustainable Management of Mussel Farming Through HighResolution Images and Open-Source Software—the Taranto Case Study

Case study

2018

Antonin, M. et al.

Toward Sustainable Practices in Urban Design: the Role of a Software Package for Designing Alternative Water Management Methods

Survey

Three Perspectives of ICT Application for Sustainable Management As the performed analysis was guided by the three stated research questions, we decided to present its results in three subsections that follow, each dedicated to one notion of area. The first one considers the areas of business activity in which ICT was adopted for sustainable management; the second one considers the functional areas of management, which are supported by the adoption of ICT for sustainable management; the last one considers the geographic areas in which the organizations applying ICT to sustainable management operate. All presented results were obtained only from the set of qualified publications described earlier. For the sake of the analysis and the visualization of results in the form of charts, we used Python 3.9 with Pandas, Geopandas, Geopy, and Pycountry modules.

Business Activity Areas In order to answer the first research question, each publication was screened to identify the business activity area for which the adoption of ICT for sustainable

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Theoretical Issues on Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability

management was reported. In some instances, the reported solutions were applied to various business activity areas (and because of their character, they possibly could be applied to any such area); we labeled such cases as “Indiscriminate.” In other instances, the reports did not provide clear or precise enough information on the business area in which a given solution was adopted; we labeled such cases as “Unspecified.” As for the remaining cases, in order to avoid excessive fragmentation of the results, we have combined related areas into aggregated ones, e.g., agriculture and aquaculture into “Agri- and aquaculture,” or various modes of transport and logistics into “Transport and Logistics.” The results obtained in this dimension of the analysis are presented in Figure 2, showing the business activity areas that were addressed in the selected set of publications.

Figure 2. Number of applications reported in respective business activity areas

The business activity area in which the adoption of ICT for sustainable management has been reported most often was manufacturing (seven times), followed by construction (six times). Third in order was Agriculture and Aquaculture, which appeared five times, and transport and logistics were mentioned four times. As all these four areas are usually associated with a heavy environmental footprint, topping the list by them is hardly a surprise. Information technology appeared three times, whereas Tourism, Government, Education, R&D, Healthcare, and Forestry appeared two times each. Lastly, four areas were mentioned by only one paper each: Waste Management Industry, Pharmaceutical Industry, Food Industry, and Retail. Unexpectedly, in the analyzed set, there was not a single publication devoted to sustainable management in the chemical industry, which is surprising, considering its heavy environmental footprint.

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However, not all kinds of ICT adoption for sustainable management are confined to one business activity area; in fact, nine publications presented examples of applications serving various business activity areas. Moreover, three publications did not specify the exact business activity area in which the adoption took place. The papers differed in the scale of the adoption area, spanning from a single enterprise to a whole industry. As a good example of the former, Baykasoğlu et al. describe a web-based decision support system for the intermodal fleet management system of a large-scale international logistics company in Turkey (Baykasoğlu et al. 2019). The system has been implemented as a means to solve the underlying intermodal fleet management problems. The company operating it is the fastestgrowing logistics corporation in Europe and one of the pioneering suppliers of integrated logistics services in both Turkey and Europe. The system consists of multiple modules addressing different intermodal fleet planning problems under the responsibility of distinct decision-makers. It addresses various domain problems, including load planning, fleet sizing, fleet allocation, and fleet expansion/reduction. According to Baykasoğlu et al., achieving approximately 13.2% of the total transportation cost less than the annual cost objective by the company could be attributed to the system. Moreover, the use of the system may allow for attaining the transport goals with a reduced size of the fleet. This indirectly yet strongly affects economic and environmental sustainability. As a good example of the latter, Li et al. describe the Chinese framework of management system for industrial enterprises’ digital transition and introduce the integration of informatization and industrialization management system (iI&I-MS), analyzing data obtained from its implementation (Q. Li et al. 2019). According to them, iI&I-MS provides a sustainable competitive advantage matched with the enterprise strategy. It covers four management domains: management responsibilities, supporting sector, implementation process, and evaluation-improvement process. Because of such a wide scope, it allows optimizing business processes, as well as adjusting organizational structure, focusing on optimizing the integration process by clarifying management responsibilities, consolidating supporting sectors, standardizing the implementation process, and strengthening evaluation and improvement. In an effort to promote the implementation of iI&I-MS, the online integration of informatization and industrialization system working platform has been developed, providing services for enterprises, including iI&I assessment, diagnosis, consultation, professional training, and other services. Already as of March 2018, a total of 1,827 enterprises have certified iI&I-MS.

Management Functional Areas Addressing the second research question, we considered the five classic management functions: planning, organizing, directing, staffing, and controlling; as described e.g., in Functions of Management (Shinde 2018). Figure 3 presents the percentages of the papers which reported the adoption of ICT for sustainable management in the context of respective management functional areas. Note that the percentages do not sum up to 100, as many adoption examples addressed several areas.

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Figure 3. Number of applications reported in respective management functional areas

The adoption of ICT for sustainable management was most often reported in the context of supporting the function of planning (in 29 percent of the analyzed publications). Close by is organizing, pointed to by 27 percent of publications. Much fewer publications mentioned supporting the function of directing and controlling (both in 19% of the analyzed publications). The least interest was found to be put on the function of staffing (only five percent of the analyzed publications). This was not expected, considering that the support of staffing with ICT is well appreciated (Václav et al. 2011) and that staffing is an important component of sustainable management (Takeda and Helms 2010). Looking at the aspect of management domains, one which gained particular attention in the literature was supply-chain management. For instance, Li et al. explored the impact of supply chain management systems (SCMS) on supply chain capabilities (SCC) based on SCC literature and data from 168 partners using an SCMS implemented by the leading bicycle supply chain in Taiwan (J. Li et al. 2020). The SCMS as an infrastructure provides timely, massive, accurate, and reliable information shared and is used by all partners in the supply chain. The Taiwanese bicycle industry has flourished internationally for more than 30 years, with Taiwan becoming the world’s largest bicycle exporter from 1980 on. Rising labor and manufacturing costs forced many manufacturers to shift the production process to mainland China, where they can operate at a lower cost. This, as well as growing globalization and an uncertain environment, resulted in the cooperation of the two largest Taiwan bicycle assemblers with their part suppliers. This alliance pushed the industry toward the use of an inter-organizational information system. The empirical results show a strong correlation between SCMS implementation and improvement

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of supply chain capability to sense market changes thanks to better information exchange, collaboration, coordination, and integrated response plan. This, in turn, improved the stakeholders’ overall operating performance, thanks to improved organizational agility, flexibility, and responsiveness, which also translates to better risk mitigation. Consequently, the implementation of SCMS leads to a reduction of the total energy consumption and maximization of the efficiency of supply chain processes, such as scheduling, procurement, order fulfillment, engineering change, and design optimization. Moreover, it was determined that using the implemented solution was connected to gaining a competitive advantage. Mandičák et al. investigated the same domain yet in the area of the construction industry, exploring the level of use of big data and SCMS and their impact on economic sustainability, in particular, the delivery time of materials as well as the cost of the building construction, through a survey (Mandičák et al. 2021a). They emphasize that the construction industry is data-driven, which allowed big data technology to enable the dissemination of business intelligence and innovative solutions in this business area. The results of the survey confirmed a close relationship between the use of big data and SCMS, and material delivery time: the higher the big data and SCMS usage rates, the shorter the delivery time. Taking into account the economic sustainability aspects, the use of the mentioned technologies was shown to be capable of reducing the costs of construction projects.

Geographic Areas Only about half of the analyzed sources indicated a particular country in which the organization adopting ICT for sustainable management was operating. The other part comprised both solutions which were adopted in many countries and those adopted in a particular country, which was not however revealed. Figure 4 presents the geographic location of countries for which ICT application for sustainable management has been reported. The three countries most often indicated as a place of adoption were: China, Turkey, and Italy, each mentioned in three publications. There were two publications each from Greece, Slovakia, Australia, Germany, India, Thailand, and Brazil, whereas France, Bahrain, Portugal, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Poland, Russia, Iran, Sweden, Malaysia, and Bangladesh were all mentioned only in one publication each. Unexpectedly, we were not able to identify any publication indicating North America or Africa as the place of adoption. Nonetheless, the identified reports come from four continents and from countries at various levels of development, including both developing countries and highlydeveloped ones. A good representative of the first group is India, a subject of the survey by Khuntia et al., who investigated the results of green IT investment and implementations in terms of energy conservation and impact on company profit by analyzing an archival dataset gathered from a sample of about 300 organizations in India, combined with objective data obtained from a secondary source (Khuntia et al. 2018). They pointed out that although developed countries contribute most to the current global carbon emission, developing economies such as India are likely to show a significant increase in carbon emission over time due to higher

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Figure 4. Number of applications reported in respective countries

rates of economic growth and a larger population, which calls for an effort on promoting sustainability in developing economies. Furthermore, companies located in developing economies are noticing that they can approach sustainability from a return-on-investment perspective, as the financial investment can be regained in the form of positive outcomes, such as a better reputation among customers, employees, and other stakeholders. Better energy conservation practices also have a direct impact on operational costs, which in many industries can lead to a significant drag on profit margins. Last but not least, energy access may be limited in developing economies where electric power shortages often force the use of backup power facilities, and reducing energy consumption can help limit the need for such costly workarounds. Khuntia et al.’s results indicate that green IT spending has a positive impact on profit, and demonstrate a correlation between operations-oriented green IT implementations, energy conservation, and profit. Operations-oriented green IT implementations also seem to provide learning-based advantages. An example coming from a highly-developed country is given by Thorpe et al., who discuss the topic of the utilization of advanced information management systems, data collection, and the integration of a range of data types (Thorpe et al. 2021). They review asset management systems and their use in building design organizations in South-East Queensland, Australia. The provided examples include the use of GIS, remote and automated sensing, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT), and Building Information Modeling (BIM), implemented in both small and medium enterprises. In particular, BIM is a well-established 3D design and construction management tool, whose use in construction project scheduling and costing has been increasing over the years. Furthermore, its use as a potential tool for project lifecycle management assistance in design and construction, as well as in the end-of-lifecycle decision-making process has been evaluated, based on the results of a survey performed among 25 companies that use BIM as a modeling tool in architectural, engineering, and design sectors. The conclusion of that research is open, indicating that there is a number of factors that require addressing concerning the use of BIM for modeling, including, e.g., staff training.

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Conclusions ICT provides a wide gamut of solutions that can be adopted for the sake of sustainable management. This has not gone unnoticed by the scientific community, resulting in a number of research papers dedicated to various examples of such applications. Until now, however, no one put the effort into mapping this body of literature. This gap has been addressed by our work. The value of our research contribution is both theoretical (helping to establish the extent of the research in this domain) and practical (helping to direct future research by both identifying the problem areas which attained the largest researchers’ interest so far and by pointing to neglected topics which still wait to be explored). As our intention was to give a current image of the research front, in our survey we have only included works published no earlier than in 2018; in an effort to cover a potentially wide range of published research while ensuring sufficient quality, we have chosen three large renowned bibliographic data providers as data sources: Scopus, Web of Science, and Proquest. While 230 possibly relevant records were identified in these sources, after screening and filtering out publications that were not on the topic, we were left with 52 papers to analyze. As a result of the performed analysis, we were able to indicate: the business activity areas in which the adoption of ICT for sustainable management was reported most often; the management functions that were most often reported to be supported by the adoption of ICT for sustainable management; and the countries in which the organizations adopting ICT for sustainable management were most often reported to operate. This work shares its limitations with all research based on bibliographic data analysis. The potential threats to validity lie in (1) the selection of the considered bibliographic databases, (2) the forming of the search terms, and (3) the qualification of the relevant papers for further analysis. We have put effort into mitigating the associated risks by (1) using well-known reliable providers of bibliographic data; (2) including alternative spelling forms in the search terms; and (3) performing the screening independently by two researchers, discussing together any dubious cases. While the main implication of our research is that the study of ICT adoption for sustainable management covers various business activity areas and all functions of management, and is reported from countries at different geographic locations and levels of development, we were able to identify areas that have not received adequate research interest so far. These areas include ICT adoption for sustainable management in the chemical industry, addressing problems related to staffing, and focusing on organizations operating in Africa and North America. These indicate the most urgent directions for research on ICT adoption for sustainable management. As we have not identified any study comparing ICT adoption for sustainable management between different business areas or between different countries, our results provide a strong base for meta-analyses that would involve such comparisons.

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A Concept of a Sustainable Digital Healthcare System Małgorzata Dymyt and Marta Wincewicz-Bosy* Logistics Department, General Tadeusz Kościuszko Military University of Land Forces, Poland; [email protected]; [email protected]

Introduction Health systems are confronted with enormous social, economic, technological, and environmental challenges. The main challenges of healthcare organizations around the world currently include increasing financial pressures due to the widespread diffusion of health-related technologies and innovations. There is a need for timely institutional, structural, and managerial changes due to the epidemiological shift to long-term disease. Additionally, there is an increasing health need in the community due to the gradual but constant aging of the population (Borgonovi et al. 2018). Health systems are therefore obliged to ensure sustainable development within their system and consider mutual relations as part of the sustainable development of the whole society (Mortimer et al. 2018). There are specific relationships between health and sustainable development. On the one hand, the medical sector generates a source of threats to the environment, and on the other hand, health is key to the wellbeing of human beings and entire societies. Health plays a crucial role in sustainable development as it is both a beneficiary and a contributor to development due to its strong environmental, social, and economic interconnections and impacts (NHSO 2019). Building socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable health systems requires technological support. The development of information and communications technologies focused on health is becoming the driving force of an innovative approach to the quality management of health services in the context of their availability and personalization. The management of a healthcare system and the provision of healthcare services are largely information activities with a significant need for knowledge. In this context, information and communications technologies play a key role in *Corresponding author: [email protected]

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sharing resources between system participants, enhancing their interactions, and reducing information asymmetry. Therefore, the critical challenge for modern, well-functioning healthcare systems is the successful integration of adaptive, new, disruptive, and innovative technical means to improve healthcare delivery. This integration enables digital health interventions to be implemented in a cost-effective, accessible, and user-friendly manner, supporting treatment, health promotion, and disease prevention (Gutenberg and Kayser 2018). This chapter focuses on issues related to adopting new information and communications technologies for the development of sustainable healthcare and, consequently, the pursuit of a model of a sustainable digital health system. The following research questions were formulated regarding the main issues: 1. How can the adoption of emerging information and communications technologies by the healthcare system affect sustainable development? 2. What are the conditions and requirements necessary to adopt new information and communications technologies for the sustainable development of the health system? 3. How can the contribution of ICT adoption in healthcare to sustainable development be measured? 4. What conditions are crucial for the development of the concept of a sustainable digital health system? Therefore, the purpose of this chapter is twofold. Firstly, to present the essence of sustainable healthcare systems and digital health and their relationships to sustainability. Secondly, to identify the role and key factors of implementing information and communications technologies in order to build sustainable digital healthcare systems. In addition, this study examines the scope of using information and communications technologies in healthcare within the context of sustainable development. The review focuses on two main conceptual aspects: the essence and dimensions of sustainable development in healthcare and how digital health instruments can support sustainable digital healthcare systems. A qualitative research approach was employed to solve the research problem, referring to the relevant literature on sustainable development in healthcare and digital health issues.

Sustainability in the Healthcare System The Genesis of Sustainable Development in the Health System For several decades, sustainable development has been one of the main topics of discourse in political, economic, social, technological, and environmental research. However, the multi-context nature and complexity of this concept pose challenges for decision-makers, researchers, and practitioners at the global, international, and local scales. Health is one of the main areas directly related to fulfilling human needs. In 2015, the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development indicated that good health is essential for sustainable development. Therefore, health goals address various issues such as increasing economic and social inequalities, rapid urbanization, threats to the climate and the environment, increasing HIV and other

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communicable diseases, and new challenges like non-communicable diseases (UN 2015). As part of the Sustainable Development Goals, health issues are covered in “Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.” In addition, health issues are included in at least ten other goals. Consequently, more than 50 SDGs have been agreed upon around the world to measure health outcomes, proximal health determinants, or the delivery of health services, which can be grouped into seven thematic areas such as reproductive health, maternal health, newborn and baby, infectious disease, non-communicable diseases (NCD) and mental health, resentment and violence, universal health insurance (UHC) and healthcare systems, and environmental threats (WHO 2018).

Definitions of a Sustainable Healthcare System A sustainable health system can be defined in various ways, considering its systems, structures, and capabilities. According to the Alliance for Natural Health, the term “sustainable healthcare system” refers to “a complex system of interacting approaches to the restoration, management, and optimization of human health that has an ecological base, that is environmentally, economically and socially viable indefinitely, that functions harmoniously both with the human body and the nonhuman environment, and which does not result in unfair or disproportionate impacts on any significant contributory element of the healthcare system” (ANH 2010). Momete (2016) proposed the following definition: “sustainable healthcare represents a complex system that is economically, socially, and environmentally viable in the long term for all human beings, with no negative impacts on any subsystem of the healthcare system.” According to Pantzartzis et al., “a sustainable healthcare facility is a physical and organizational structure that should meet the healthcare needs of a community in the present, without compromising the ability of the same, or of new communities, to meet their future health care needs” (Pantzartzis et al. 2017). A sustainable healthcare system must have at least three key elements: “accessibility for each individual, mutual acceptance between patients and the medical staff, and adaptability, as health systems should be able to permanently adapt to the socio-economic and demographic changes, to new illnesses, to scientific discoveries and dynamic technologies, in order to remain viable” (Popescu et al. 2018). Sustainable healthcare structures can also include “products, services, and healthcare operations with superior environmental performance – without compromising with the quality level of the care itself” (NSH 2019). Healthcare sustainability refers to the ability of the health system to continuously maintain or improve the health of the entire population and each individual by adapting to economic and socio-demographic changes (Aquino et al. 2018). Kowalska-Bobko et al. define health system sustainability as “a health system’s ability to continually deliver the key health system functions of providing services, generating resources, financing, and stewardship, incorporating principles of fair financing, equity in access, and efficiency of care, in pursuit of its goals of improving population health, and responsiveness to the needs of the populations it serves, and to learn and improve in doing so” (Kowalska-Bobko et al. 2021). Sustainability in the healthcare system

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means maintaining and adapting the system to constantly changing economic, social, and demographic factors, making sure that limited (physical, financial, and human) resources are used efficiently and responsibly to sustainably maintain or improve the health of the population as a whole and each individual (Popescu et al. 2018).

The Character and Factors of a Sustainable Health System Broadly speaking, sustainable health refers to the issue of ensuring well-being and disease prevention, often before the individual requires care (NSH 2019). In this context, the present and future health needs of the population are considered. Therefore, a sustainable system involves forward-thinking. The essence of sustainable development is to act in consideration of the future. Thus, the implementation of this concept should take place in a systematic, cyclical process, including four main stages: commitment, execution, monitoring, and communication (Silva et al. 2020). In addition, a health system’s development toward sustainability must consider key factors such as long-term strategic perspective and innovation, disease prevention and health promotion, quality, institutionalization of environmental problems, and institutional accountability and individual responsibility (Fischer 2015). The development of sustainable healthcare is associated with a systemic approach, addressing various social, demographic, and cultural challenges as manifested in changing human needs, technological and scientific challenges, and the need to operate within environmental and financial boundaries while facing increasing levels of regulation and control (Pencheon 2013). Sustainable health systems require understanding the relationship between health and its broader context, considering the conditions that shape health and health services. This includes socio-economic conditions, government policy, ecology, and the physical environment, which encompasses anything that shapes the social and environmental determinants of health (Tsasis et al. 2019). In a broader sense, three pillars of sustainable development are distinguished in relation to healthcare structures: social, environmental, and economic sustainability. 1) The economic macro-area mainly concerns with the management, technological, and clinical aspects; 2) the environmental protection deals with issues such as energy, water, waste, materials, and urban planning; and 3) the social dimension encompasses humanization, comfort and space distribution within healthcare settings (Buffoli 2013). Sustainable development in healthcare practice requires focusing on the broad meaning of sustainability by integrating environmental, social, economic, and health aspects. Clear communication among all stakeholders is essential, starting from the design, planning, and construction phases through to operation and use. Setting goals early on and implementing, evaluating, and communicating the results are thus crucial steps in supporting trends in healthcare sustainability (Sagha Zadeh et al. 2016).

The Role of Sustainable Development in the Health System According to WHO, environmental sustainability in health systems can result in tangible benefits and opportunities for the protection and promotion of health, financial savings and better productivity, increased community resilience and

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social capital, and reduced environmental risk (WHO 2017). The very concept of environmental health refers to “health risks in the surrounding environment, both outdoors and indoors, and how they affect an individual” (NSH 2019). The WHO points out that the major environmental impacts of health systems are due to energy and resource consumption, the production of greenhouse gas emissions, the use and disposal of toxic chemicals, and the production of waste and wastewater (WHO 2017). However, achieving these benefits requires the introduction of a comprehensive and coherent policy that relates to the health sector and its environment. The environmental impact of the healthcare system depends primarily on the effectiveness and efficiency of the system as a whole, as well as on the interventions undertaken. It can also be shaped by the level of knowledge and participation of patients (WHO 2016). Sustainable development in healthcare means optimizing the use of resources to improve the quality of healthcare and deliver better outcomes (Cavicchi 2022). From a clinical perspective, sustainable development involves the appropriate allocation of human and material resources and consideration of the health and well-being of staff (Nicol 2018). Borgonovi et al. emphasize the need to ensure financial stability in relation to the long-term ability of the healthcare system to accumulate appropriate financial assets and economic stability at the organizational level, resulting from the improvement of the service providers’ ability to maximize the value that they can obtain from the provision of health services (Borgonovi et al. 2018). To create more sustainable healthcare systems, critical factors are delivering value to consumers (adopting a consumer perspective) and developing a broader, more holistic, consumer-centric approach that focuses on well-being, prevention, and continuous health management (PWC 2017). This value creation for health services extends not only to service users but also applies to service sector workers and the wider community, both locally and on a broader scale, domestically and internationally.

Measuring Sustainability in the Health System To achieve goals, benefits, and progress in developing a sustainable health system, it is necessary to measure, analyze, and assess the system’s performance. Therefore, managing a sustainable health system requires multifaceted control that takes into account not only the health system itself but also its interaction with the environment. Ensuring a sustainable healthcare system requires measures to improve safety and equality for all, effective and lawful management, better care delivery, and the right balance between different types of care (primary and secondary, preventive and curative) for both patients and staff (Momete 2016). Mehra and Sharma proposed a set of sustainability measures for healthcare grouped into three dimensions of sustainable development: environmental, social, and economic. The environmental dimension includes green energy, waste reduction and management, pollution control (such as emissions to air, land, and water), conservation of natural resources, energy efficiency, transportation, sustainable facility design, reuse, repair, refurbishment, remanufacture, recycling, and efficient use of materials and sustainable procurement. The social dimension includes factors like patient satisfaction, workforce satisfaction,

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education and training, affordability, accessibility, availability, safety, comfort, employment, and sustained health. The economic dimension involves considerations such as green/sustainable growth, research, and innovations, profits, saving in operational costs, and indigenous production of medical devices and equipment (Mehra and Sharma 2021). The transition to sustainable healthcare requires the acquisition of new knowledge and sustainability skills within the various health disciplines, management practices, and technological domains traditionally involved with the sector. It involves the incorporation of sustainable design in the development of healthcare facilities, services and products. Additionally, it requires the integration of environmental disciplines such as environmental management, sustainable waste management, and clean technologies into healthcare practices. Furthermore, fostering effective networking and dialogue among diverse health stakeholders is crucial for promoting sustainability, as it involves collaboration across different fields and sectors (Pereno and Eriksson 2020). In order to achieve more sustainable healthcare, the continuous evolution of the four technology-driven trends is essential: a continuous influx of new actors into the sector, redesign of healthcare staffing, the use of genomics and personalized medicine, and the improvement of care delivery systems (PWC 2017). In this context, a technological pillar needs to strengthen the three fundamental pillars of sustainability (environmental, economic, and social).

Digital Health and Sustainable Health System The Essence and Conditions of Digital Health Development The rapid development of information and communications technologies creates various opportunities for healthcare, particularly in strengthening a sustainable health system. The health services sector also uses new technologies, adapting them to the needs of various stakeholders (decision-makers, employees, and present and potential patients). There are many different concepts concerning the use of ICT, including digital health, e-health, m-health, and telemedicine. According to WHO, digital health means “the use of digital, mobile and wireless technologies to support the achievement of health objectives. Digital health describes the general use of information and communications technologies (ICT) for health and is inclusive of both mHealth and eHealth” (WHO 2016a). Technological progress is conducive to the emergence of new solutions and disruptive innovations affecting processes, management, and relationships in the healthcare sector. Disruptive innovation in healthcare refers to the type of innovation that creates new networks and organizational cultures, involves new actors, and has the potential to improve health outcomes and healthcare value while displacing older systems and practices (EXPH 2016). There are several new technologies with significant potential in addressing challenges related to population aging, diseases, chronic conditions requiring long-term care, and genetics. These include 3D printing, robotics, artificial intelligence, and precision medicine, consisting of adapting diagnostic, therapeutic, or preventive interventions to the specific needs

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of individuals or sub-populations based on their common characteristics, such as susceptibility to a particular disease or a response to treatment or preventive interventions) (Jones et al. 2018).

The Role of Information and Communications Technologies New information and communications technologies generate many benefits for the health sector in the medical, management, and communication spheres. These benefits concern the social and economic dimensions. At the same time, it is important to stress the ethical and legal aspects of using digital health tools. The key challenges are cybersecurity and ensuring the security of personal data, including patient medical records, responsibility for the reliability, truthfulness, and timeliness of the information provided, and equality of access (counteracting digital exclusion). Falzon et al. emphasize that digital technologies can be crucial to achieving the critical health SDGs, in particular, Goal 3, and can improve the provision of information needed to train healthcare professionals, prevent diseases, promote healthy behaviors, and increase access to essential healthcare workers, health services, and goods (Falzon et al. 2017). Botti and Monda (2020) consider innovation and digital health in the context of sustainable co-creation of value, which is the source of benefits such as (1) economic benefits i.e., increasing the economic stability of the healthcare system and expanding access to care in the population in terms of economic availability and competitive advantage. Then there are (2) social well-being benefits that enable individuals to come into direct contact with health professionals and continuously monitor their health. Lastly, (3) environmental benefits encourage a healthy and sustainable lifestyle and respect for the environment. Generally, digital health solutions can play an essential role in addressing several challenges and opportunities, as outlined by Serra et al. (2022): 1. Overcoming the crisis in the healthcare system resources by enabling remote care for chronic diseases and alleviating shortages of health workers. 2. Supporting the evolution of the patient-physician relationship, reorienting it towards agile and continuous attention focused on patient autonomy, participation, experience, and needs. 3. Simplifying administrative processes in healthcare, improving the quality and cost of medical care, and breaking geographic barriers. Providing healthcare remotely via telemedicine or telephone clinics with the routine use of innovative and even simple digital technology can result in broader social and environmental benefits (Nicol 2018). New technologies based on wireless solutions have great potential to transform (revolutionize) the health sector by increasing geographic access, facilitating the provision of appropriate interventions, reducing intervention costs, raising public awareness of the approach to health problems, and promoting a healthy lifestyle, thereby strengthening patients (Novillo-Ortiz et al. 2018). As a consequence, e-health can play an essential part in building health systems that are strong, efficient, and well-administered, ensuring universal coverage by reducing costs and increasing efficiency. This can also be achieved through information gathering, data analysis, planning, and necessary

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supply systems, as well as operational research (e-science) to assess their impact and improve decision-making and policy formulation to eradicate poverty (Del Rio Sánchez et al. 2019). A key benefit of using digital tools is new ways to overcome transportation barriers, monitor and segregate, and employ recent advances in precision medicine in populations cost-effectively (WEF 2021). According to WHO, travel reduction through telehealth, telemedicine, and other e-health solutions generate environmental and other benefits due to their potential to significantly reduce the need for patients and staff to travel (WHO 2016).

Threats to the Implementation of Digital Solutions in the Health System Digitization in healthcare has positive and negative effects on the environment. On the positive side, the benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions are emphasized. However, the production of mHealth devices and related activities and networks of data centers are associated with the depletion of resources (land, water, and biodiversity) that can lead to creating problems in local waste management processes (Degavre et al. 2022). In a global context, digital health can have a negative environmental impact, contributing to carbon dioxide emissions through the production and disposal of wearable medical devices, the operating energy costs of data centers and telecommunications centers, and the energy consumption during processing data to support artificial intelligence use in medicine and machine learning (Gray 2022). The use of m-health also has social consequences related to the challenges in using tools, lack of access, limited participation in the decision-making process or evaluation of new technologies, and ethical repercussions related to privacy violations, iatrogenesis, disinformation, and misinformation or “fake news” and cyberattacks (Degavre et al. 2022). In this context, it should be emphasized that a sustainable system requires proper implementation and development of digital solutions, ensuring access to high-quality healthcare, education and development of digital skills of medical staff and patients, and the safety, transparency, and ease of use of digital solutions. Furthermore, the sustainability of digital innovations is determined by the extent to which health service structures and support systems integrate digital interventions with existing services and systems in a way that ensures their long-term sustainability, in particular contextual factors (funding, level of organizational support, readiness, capacity, training, etc.) are important (EXPH 2019).

Conditions for Deploying Digital Solutions for Sustainable Development in Health Systems The sustainable approach to the diffusion and adoption of digital health technologies requires a wide range of action, covering not only technological issues but also how they are integrated and used in services, motivations, constraints, and specific contexts relating to the impact on those who apply and benefit from them (Cripps and Scarbrough 2022).

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Del Rio Sánchez and others stress that to achieve Goal 3 of sustainable development in the field of universal health insurance (SDG 3), it is necessary to support e-health tools and enable the exchange of information related to medical care between specialists and researchers (e-science) and patients. This includes realtime monitoring of patients’ life parameters (biosensors) and direct delivery of care (telecare). Additionally, the use of social networking sites can be used to conduct warning or preventive campaigns (Del Rio Sánchez et al. 2019). The introduction of digital health innovation is an iterative process involving complex interactions between different factors and therefore requires creative and courageous leadership (Desveaux et al. 2019). On the other hand, a critical role is played here by the patient, who must be ready to accept new considerations and have the relevant knowledge and equipment to efficiently and actively participate in digital health interventions. The development of information and communications technologies contributes to forming a new category of patients: e-patients. The term “e-patient” includes the patients themselves, patients looking for information helpful in meeting their health needs, and their friends and family members searching for information on their behalf (Ferguson 2007). A characteristic feature of an e-patient is the awareness of the need to search for information and expand health knowledge. Patients become active, empowered, and engaged through access to information. They can play a more active role, participate fully in joint decision-making about their medical care and take personal responsibility for the independent management of their disease and care (Hegdekar 2018). The e-patient is, therefore, a representative of a sustainable information society, which means that they effectively and efficiently use information and ICT for continuous learning and improvement of competences, adaptation, development, revitalization, reconstruction, and reorientation to achieve various goals (Ziemba 2017). The roadmap proposed in Riga in 2015 (Riga Health Conference 2015) recommends promoting the sustainable development of health systems by investing in cost-effective and valuable innovations, taking into account the needs of patients and social needs. Disruptive innovations with high value, meaning either meeting patient expectations or delivering desired outcomes at the lowest possible cost, are key to the healthcare system (EXPH 2015). It is also necessary to implement development concepts in other sectors, taking into account technological progress and the relationship between people and their environment, which is subject to dynamic changes. An interesting approach is connected health, an area of digital health that includes a social engineering model for healthcare delivery and management. This model aims to develop effective and efficient interventions where devices, services, or interventions are designed most proactively and effectively around the patient’s needs (Pattichis and Panayides 2019).

Directions for the Development of Digital Solutions in a Sustainable Health System The “One Health” concept and its technological dimension, One Digital Health, also seem particularly important. One Health highlights the relationship between human and animal health, their shared environment, and the threats that diseases pose to

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food supply and the economy. It underlines the need for collaborative, multi-sectoral, transdisciplinary, and coordinated action at local, regional, national, and global levels for optimal health outcomes (Mackenzie and Jeggo 2019). This approach is an alternative to sustainable development. It offers a holistic view of health, combining the efforts of public, private, and research agencies to implement integrated and cross-sectoral policies, ensuring the more efficient administration and better management (de Macedo Couto and Brandespim 2020). The implementation of One Health requires the use of multi-sectoral coordination mechanisms, understood as formalized, permanent groups responsible for management in a way that strengthens coordination between sectors responsible for solving health problems at the interface between humans, animals, and the environment, including the prevention and preparation of zoonotic disease (Ruckert et al. 2021). Recognition of the importance of information and communications technologies was reflected in the concept of One Digital Health proposed by Benis et al., defining a unified framework in terms of three perspectives (individual health and well-being, population and society, and ecosystem) and five dimensions (citizen involvement, education, environment, health and veterinary care, and healthcare Industry 4.0) (Benis et al. 2021).

Measuring the Impact of New ICTs on Improving Health Sustainability Broad social, economic, and environmental context, range of technological opportunities, and expected benefits—values for the patient, community, society, and system—are challenges to control and measure the impact of new ICTs on enhancing sustainable health development. Kowalska-Bobko et al. (2021) indicate that the key areas of analysis of the healthcare system sustainability include: proper implementation and development of digital solutions ensuring access to high-quality healthcare; education activities and knowledge of digital technologies of service providers and consumers; securing access to the Internet and the accounts and platforms dedicated to patients and healthcare providers available there; transparency and ease of use of digital solutions and data protection. Social sustainability in relation to health-related platforms can be considered through the distribution component (efficiency of the access paths and distribution of the health engagement platform), the comfort component (online health environment through qualitative data such as information quality and usefulness, inclusiveness information), and the humanization component (patient-physician relationship, social aspects, safety and security, collaboration and perception of well-being on the engagement platform) (Presti et al. 2019). The role of the health information system in building climate resilience focuses on activities, such as disease and emerging risk monitoring, in particular obtaining information on climate vulnerability, assessing the capacity of existing and expected future challenges, and identifying necessary adjustments. It also involves integrating climate information into disease surveillance and offering opportunities for the development of early warning systems and more targeted interventions. Additionally, it involves providing guidance and use of a rapidly developing body of research on health and climate change (WHO 2015).

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A Sustainable Digital Healthcare System Model Conceptual Model Assumptions The analysis of the specificity of the sustainable approach in the healthcare system and the impact of new information and communication technologies on health led to a conceptual model of a sustainable digital health system. The identification of the essence, conditions, and directions of health system development is the starting point for formulating the framework of the model that defines the role of digital health in developing sustainable healthcare. This model reflects the foundations and scope of digital health use in the sustainable development of healthcare from a systemic perspective. The conceptual model’s assumptions concern such issues as entities, objects, scopes and areas of influence, goals, values, and methods. In terms of the system, the key beneficiaries are people—present, potential, and future patients; communities— families, local communities, society, and their surroundings, and all mutual relations. In addition, from the perspective of the entire system, entities related to the provision of health services, the supply of health products, and the design, management, and financing of healthcare at the national level are of significant importance. The objectives adopted in the model relate to social, economic, and environmental aspects, which constitute the pillars of sustainable development. In addition, key values were formulated in the context of health that form the foundation of modern patient-centered health systems. Therefore, it is crucial to look at the model through the prism of the process approach, taking into account the need for continuous transformation and making changes in the system consistent with the goals and capabilities determined by technological progress while maintaining the balance between goals and values. Taking all the above aspects into account, we propose the following general definition of sustainable digital health: A sustainable digital health system is a healthcare system managed in a way that takes into account the goals and principles of sustainable development and digitalization, oriented to providing valuable healthcare to present and future patients, communities, and societies, taking into account the need to balance the needs and benefits of all system participants and stakeholders in the context of social, economic, and environmental determinants. The concept model for a sustainable digital health system is illustrated in Figure 1.

Conceptual Framework The pillars of a sustainable digital health system are sustainable healthcare, digitization, and system management, supporting the need to implement the principles of sustainability and new information and communications technologies. The detailed scope of areas and framework of activities within the individual pillars are presented in Table 1.

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Figure 1. A sustainable digital health system: the general conceptual model (Source: Own study) Table 1. A sustainable digital health system: the conceptual model framework

•

• • •

Pillar 1. Sustainable Development: Sustainable Health System Values and Goals Actions and Methods Recognition of the role of social, • Maintaining and adapting the system to environmental, and economic constantly changing economic, social, and sustainable development in healthcare demographic factors and implementing new and the interaction between human technologies. health and the environment. • Economy: Efficiency of care, optimizing Understanding the relationship between the use of resources to improve healthcare health and its broader context. quality and deliver better outcomes, Responsibility for maintaining and institutional accountability, the appropriate improving the health of the population allocation of human, financial, and material as a whole and individually. resources, and sustainable purchasing. Mutual acceptance between patients • Society: Responsiveness to the needs and the medical staff, adaptability. of the population, accessibility for each individual, quality, person-centeredness, disease prevention, and health promotion, consideration of the health and well-being of staff. • Environment: The institutionalization of environmental problems, protection dealing with issues such as energy, water, waste, materials, and urban planning; sustainable design of facilities, services, and products; mitigating the effects of climate change; reducing health systems’ emissions of air pollutants and greenhouse gases. Pillar 2. Digitalization – Digital Health

• Integrating adaptive, new, disruptive, • Digital health, e-health, m-health, telehealth, and innovative technologies to improve the Internet of Medical Things, and big healthcare delivery, equal data were introduced in a cost-effective, accessible, and user-friendly manner.

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• • •

• • • •

•

•

•

•

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patient access to high quality, cost- • Tools and services using information and effective health services, increasing communications technologies (ICTs) to geographic access, and providing improve diagnosis, treatment, and prevention universal health coverage. of disease and injuries, interactions Enabling digital health interventions, with healthcare professionals and other increasing the uniformity of practice patients, self-assessment or monitoring (higher quality of care). and management of health, and promoting Supporting treatment, health healthy behaviors lifestyle, including promotion, and disease prevention. healthcare services, health surveillance, Sharing resources between system health literature, and health education, participants, enhancing their knowledge, research, and evaluation. interactions and reducing information • Digital health interventions for patients, asymmetry; online health environment healthcare providers, health system or through qualitative data such as resource managers, and interventions for information quality and usefulness, data services. inclusiveness information. • Climate-informed health programs. A patient-centered and value-based delivery model. Increasing patient engagement and patient safety, strengthening the patient. Better coordinating care. Improving workplace productivity, facilitating payments. Pillar 3. Health System Management Planning: Making decisions about the • Comprehensiveness, accessibility, coverage, system based on evidence, managing continuity, coordination, accountability, and knowledge, values, and benefits for efficiency. system participants and stakeholders. • Long-term strategic perspective and Organizing: Securing and developing innovation. human, financial, material, and non- • A systematic, cyclical process, including material resources, ensuring efficiency, commitment, execution, monitoring, and and sustainable optimal use of limited communication stages. resources. • Network approach and interdisciplinarity: Motivation and leadership: health stakeholder networking and dialogue Development and training of staff, across vastly different disciplines and educating the society, shaping sectors. awareness of the relationship between • Environmental management, sustainable health and the environment, benefits waste management, and clean technologies. and threats to the environment • Promoting innovative models of care. resulting from the functioning of the medical industry, promoting proactive procedures and healthy behaviors, creating incentives for change. Control: Identifying and measuring the benefits and adverse effects of the health system in the context of the economic, social, and environmental impacts of the health system in terms of technologies used.

Source: Own study

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The model assumes a comprehensive, holistic, systemic approach to the sustainable development of the healthcare system based on a variety of digital solutions enabling actions aimed at patients, communities, societies, and decisionmakers at the system level, managers at the level of healthcare providers, employees of healthcare entities, and other stakeholders related to the health system.

Conclusions Health is a central component of sustainable development. It is determined by a number of environmental, social, and economic factors that affect the health of communities, societies, and environments. On the one hand, health is a beneficiary while on the other hand, it actively contributes to development. Therefore, building a healthcare system focused on sustainable development requires ensuring sustainability to meet health needs and taking into account adaptation to economic, socio-demographic, and environmental changes. In addition, a sustainable healthcare system considers the principles of fair financing, equal access, care efficiency, and environmental responsibility. Information and communications technologies are becoming the primary tool for achieving the sustainable development of healthcare systems in the economic (cost reduction, efficiency improvement), social (health promotion, community, and social capital resilience, safety and equality in access for all), and environmental dimensions (reduction of environmental risk, overcoming transportation barriers, and monitoring and segregation of waste). In addition, digital health technologies have strong relationships with social, cultural, and economic determinants and with social determinants of health, indirectly contributing to equity in health. Digitization can help optimize access to services, reduce costs, increase efficiency, and ensure access to services for patients, including those with special health needs. However, for these benefits to occur, information and communications technology must ensure their availability, affordability, and accessibility. A conceptual model was proposed based on the identified dimensions of research and practice in digital health in the development of sustainable health care. This model reflects the role of digital health in the sustainable development of healthcare from a comprehensive, systemic perspective. The result is the definition of a conceptual framework for impact areas and factors that can be viewed as a starting point for further research. Furthermore, this definition emphasizes the critical importance of implementing the goals and principles of sustainable development and digitalization to provide valuable healthcare to present and future patients, communities, and societies. We contribute to the systematic description and clarification of the problem of the role of digital health in building sustainable healthcare. We also identify the scope of future research in order to improve the understanding of the literature and encourage the expansion of research in terms of the technological aspect.

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Practical implications relate to identifying determinants and critical success factors of information and communications technologies supporting sustainable development in health care.

Acknowledgments The chapter was financed from the funds granted to the General Tadeusz Kościuszko Military University of Land Forces in Wroclaw as part of a grant from the Minister of National Defense of the Republic of Poland.

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EXPH (Expert Panel on Effective Ways of Investing in Health). 2015. Disruptive Innovation – Considerations for health and health care in Europe. The EXPH approved this opinion for public consultation by written procedure on 29 October 2015. European Commission. EXPH (Expert Panel on Effective Ways of Investing in Health). 2016. Report on Disruptive Innovation. Brussels. EXPH (Expert Panel on Effective Ways of Investing in Health). 2019. Assessing the impact of digital transformation of health services, 20 November 2018. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. Falzon, D., G.B. Migliori, E. Jaramillo, K. Weyer, G. Joos and M. Raviglione. 2017. Digital health to end tuberculosis in the Sustainable Development Goals era: Achievements, evidence and future perspectives. European Respiratory Journal, 50: 1701632. Ferguson, T. 2007. E-patients: How they can help us heal healthcare. The e-Patient Scholars Editorial Team. San Francisco. March 2007. Fischer, M. 2015. Fit for the future? A new approach in the debate about what makes healthcare systems really sustainable. Sustainability, 7: 294-312. Gray, K. 2022. Climate change, human health, and health informatics: A new view of connected and sustainable digital health. Frontiers in Digital Health, 4: 1-5. No. 869721. Gutenberg, J. and L. Kayser. 2018. A practical toolkit for researchers working with digital health interventions for patients. Kræftens Bekæmpelse. Report 2017/2018. https:// www.cancer.dk/dyn/resources/File/file/9/7639/1581342636/2018_a-tractical-toolkitfor-researchers.pdf. Hegdekar, M. 2014. The emergence of e-patients: Role of internet and social media in participatory medicine. Research Paper based on lectures at the Medlink or Workshop Conferences at Nottingham University. December 2013-April 2014. https://medlinkuk.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/HegdekarM.pdf. Jones, M., A. Valentino, R. Castro, M. Fernandes and J. McGuinn. 2018. Sustainability of health systems. Workshop, Policy Department for Economic, Scientific and Quality of Life Policies. Directorate-General for Internal Policies. PE 619.029 - July 2018, Proceedings, European Parliament. Brussels. Kowalska-Bobko, I., M. Gałązka-Sobotka, M. Zabdyr-Jamróz, K. Badora-Musiał and K. Piotrowska. 2021. Sustainability and Resilience in the Polish Health System. Health System Sustainability and Resilience (PHSSR). London. March 2021. https://www3. weforum.org/docs/WEF_PHSSR_Poland_Report.pdf. Mackenzie, J.S. and M. Jeggo. 2019. The one health approach—Why is it so important? Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease, 4: 88. Mehra, R. and M.K. Sharma. 2021. Measures of sustainability in healthcare. Sustainability Analytics and Modeling, 1: 100001. Momete, D.C. 2016. Building a sustainable healthcare model: A cross-country analysis. Sustainability, 8: 836. Mortimer, F., J. Isherwood, C.A. Wilkinson and E. Vaux. 2018. Sustainability in quality improvement: Redefining value. Sustainability Future Healthcare Journal, 5(2): 88-93. NHSO (National Health Sustainability Office). 2019. Sustainability Strategy For Health 2017–2019. Dublin. www.hse.ie/sustainability. Nicol, E. 2018. Sustainability in healthcare: Efficiency, effectiveness, economics and the environment. Future Healthcare Journal, 5(2): 81. Novillo-Ortiz, D., H. De Fátima and M.F. Saigí-Rubió. 2018. The role of digital health in supporting the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). International Journal of Medical Informatics, 114: 106-107.

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CHAPTER

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The Meta-Design Methodology and Process Adaptability for Sustainability Support Anna Sołtysik-Piorunkiewicz1* and Stanisław Stanek2 University of Economics in Katowice, Poland; [email protected] General Tadeusz Kościuszko University of Land Forces, Wrocław, Poland; [email protected]

1 2

Introduction The previous studies of the knowledge economy focused on strategies of usage of different knowledge management ICT (information and communication technology) tools for developing a knowledge workforce and usage in decision support systems (Moore and Chang 1983; Nonaka and Takeuchi 1995; Klein and Methlie 1995; Sprague and Watson 1996; Davenport and Prusak 1998; Stanek 1999; Hevner and Chatterjee 2010; El-Gayar et al. 2013). The current sustainability development needs the progress of knowledge of ICT tools, methods, and instruments. It also requires identifying the key factors of sustainable decision-making in an organization and the characterization of key elements of knowledge components in decision support systems in sustainable development. The following chapter aims to present the results of research on adaptability and knowledge management in the context of sustainable development. The purpose of this chapter is to present methods of modeling processes to support sustainable development i.e., Business Process Management (BPM) and Adaptive Case Management (ACM). The chapter presents the theoretical considerations regarding the methods themselves and their potential applications in modeling and simulating the dynamics of systems and their processes. The methods allow us to model the structure of complex and dynamical systems, taking into account at the same time numerous feedback loops with critical factors of like components: (1) data, (2) dialogue, (3) modeling, (4) knowledge, (5) communication, and (6) creativity with (7) collaboration of knowledge workers in the smart and mobile organization. *Corresponding author: [email protected]

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These occur within these systems with DSS (decision support system) meta-design methodology (Fischer and Giaccardi 2004; Fischer 2010; Stanek 1999; Stanek and Sroka 2000; Twardowski et al. 2011; Stanek et al. 2013), with an extension of the model described by Stanek et al. (2022). The chapter discusses the business process adaptability with methods based on BPM and ACM. The methods allow for easy adaptation of the built model to the current needs, including checking further hypotheses or new action scenarios for decision-makers in sustainable development. Thanks to these properties, it can be successfully used in the modeling and analysis of various classes of decision problems in the field of almost any problem area in an organization. The chapter describes examples of system variability in terms of sustainable development to make decisions in the field of critical resource management in an IT company. The conclusion of the research provides recommendations for sustainable decisions making processes.

Background and Methodological Proposals Sustainability Sustainability is about meeting the needs of present generations without compromising the needs of future ones, striking a balance between economic growth, environmental care, and social well-being. A closely related concept is that of sustainable development. The terms are often used synonymously. UNESCO distinguishes between the two concepts in this way: “Sustainability is often thought of as a longterm goal (i.e., a more sustainable world), whereas sustainable development refers to the multiple processes and pathways to achieve it.” There are two main methods of regulating human impact on nature’s gifts. One is the ecological strategy, which is based mainly on information provided by specialists trained in natural sciences and environmental protection. The second alternative is the regulation of resource use, which relies mainly on information from specialists trained in economics. The survival of the human species is intertwined with economics through the consequences of uncontrolled commercial activities. Striving to increase the chances of survival (or adaptive survival), while maintaining livelihoods at an adequate level is a societal task that, among other things, includes international and national law, spatial and transport economics, regional and individual lifestyles, and ethical consumerism. Rational lifestyles can take many forms, from the appropriate adaptation of the urban economy (e.g., eco-villages and urban settlements) to the transformation of working methods (e.g., by switching to self-sufficient agriculture, “green” construction), or the invention and application of new technological solutions that reduce the consumption of natural resources, such as renewable energy technologies. The international nature of the economy and the importance of global trade that meets the requirements of sustainable development requires the application of sustainability criteria for internationally traded products. The existence of sustainability criteria ensures sustainability in the long term and secures investment. Another positive effect of the sustainability criteria is that products that meet them can later be linked to government subsidies. To achieve

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the best possible sustainability protection, sustainability criteria for a product and its production should be applied at an earlier stage of industry development. People perceive sustainability criteria differently, with some primarily associating impression of sustainability as a means to focus mainly on resource depletion, while others see it as a concept in which sustainability includes pollution, ecological preservation, and its ecological aspects. Some include features of human quality of life or human well-being. In a business context, sustainability refers to more than just ecology. Harvard Business School lists two ways to measure sustainable business practices: the impact a company has on the environment and the impact a company has on society, with the goal of sustainable practices being to have a positive impact on at least one of these areas. The transition to sustainability can be difficult. First, it is difficult to understand the impact of each company. Second, it is difficult to assess the environmental impact of certain activities. Thirdly, it is difficult to predict how economic actors will respond to changing incentives. In addition to the social benefits of improving the environment and raising the level of human needs, companies that successfully implement sustainability strategies also benefit financially. Using resources sustainably can improve a company’s longterm profitability, just as reducing waste and pollution can help a company save money. For instance, using more efficient lighting and water fixtures can help a company save money on utility bills as well as improve its public image. There may also be government tax incentives for companies that adopt certain sustainable practices. Both people and companies play a crucial role in combating climate change and taking action to support sustainability. Sustainability, however, does not only refer to the environment but must also be implemented in many other ways: environmental, economic, and social sustainability. In September 2015, the General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (ARAGA). The 2030 Agenda is the successor to the millennium development goals. The United Nations publishes an annual report analyzing how each goal is progressing. The 17 SDGs are integrated; they recognize that actions in one area will affect outcomes in others and that development must balance social, economic, and environmental sustainability. Some sustainability experts and practitioners have proposed more types of sustainability, such as institutional, cultural, and technical dimensions. Some consider resource use and financial sustainability as two additional types of sustainability.

Roots and Challenges for ICT on the Road to Sustainable Development The idea of sustainable development was already widely discussed by philosophers of the Chinese Confucian circle. In particular, Xunzi concluded the essence of sustainable development is that all people desire and detest the same things. As there

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are many desires but few things, fights are inevitable. Therefore, restrictions must be placed on the arising and satisfaction of desires. Nothing is more effective in this culture than civilized human communities in which the forms of culture, including customs i.e., good upbringing, create social differentiation; this in turn creates limits for human desires, thus limiting competition and strengthening cooperation and peace. An individual cooperating in the social structure and being part of culture should stand between Heaven, which gives models based on parables from the life of gods, and the Earth, which gives wealth in the form of shared resources. Even a deeper penetration into the issues of sustainable development is possible, thanks to the practical experiences of this cultural circle that is not yet fully recognized by modern science. The Hani people, for instance (Fulen 2009; Yang et al. 2018; Yuan et al. 2022), have maintained a complex and extensive sustainable agroenvironmental system of terraced rice fields in Yunnan for over 1,500 years, with about 3,000 terraces covering about 11,000 hectares. The system’s durability is the result of the interplay of cultural, agronomic, and environmental factors. These people have a unique cultural system that honors the Earth. Hania’s religion includes polytheism and nature worship. Deforestation is considered a violation of religious principles, and children are actively taught to respect the forest. in his dissertation Syvicultura Oeconomic in 1713. This work emerged from the German cultural circle closer to us in terms of time and space. All German Higher Forest Schools postulated permanent, unchanging maintenance of the stand in the farm forest sack. Apart from the specificity of forest management, the most frequently used definition of sustainable development (in German Nachaltigkeit) is the one formulated during the United Nations Conference in 1987 in the so-called Gro Harlem Brudtlandt Report. It contains the following statement: “Humanity has the ability to make development sustainable to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” In the meantime, many research and analysis results have indicated the need for systems thinking in the area of sustainable development. Malthus’ theory from 1798 and the Rome Club Report Limits to Growth from 1972 are among the most famous research. Let us recall, in the context of significant demographic changes, Malthus put forward the thesis that land resources are not able to meet the demand of its growing population. In the Rome Report, there is indicated that an economy focused on infinite growth leads to the depletion of the Earth’s irreversible resources, the so-called ecological capacity. To find solutions, numerous information and communication technologies have emerged, such as system dynamics, computer simulation, system archetypes, data mining, and big data. These solutions made it possible to solve many individual problems. They indicated the need to use situational and adaptive methodologies for practice. The research gap is that these methodologies are not yet fully understood and described.

Meta Design for Decision Support Knowledge, as a critical asset in a sustainable organization, needs to be managed with different methods based on business processes and business objectives. The business resources of knowledge are described by data and information, playing a

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major role in every company in knowledge decision support (Nonaka and Takeuchi 1995; Sprague and Watson 1996; Davenport and Prusak 1998). Their actual value, however, depends on how they are used; therefore, a company pursuing its business goals needs to collect information from the best available sources and transform it into knowledge. Well-prepared information can be used to improve the decisionmaking process in an organization. This process is fundamental to making an organization more competitive. The human-computer interaction in DSS is focused on “speeding up the learning process of the user” (Klein and Methlie 1995). The well-designed DSS is one of the systems, which is implemented for knowledge management in an organization. It is a natural property of knowledge that evolves continuously, therefore unless a DSS is capable of evolving with the knowledge and bringing some benefits to an organization. The meta-design approach had its advocates, who undertook to further develop it (Moore and Chang 1983; Stanek 1999; Hevner and Chatterjee 2010; ElGayar et al. 2013). Due to the volatility and change dynamics of the design space, frequently coupled with a need for organizational change entailed by IT deployment, there is the integration of current trends in system design and organizational change (Fry 2009). The meta-design methodology provides higher-level abstract rules supporting the working methodology framework used in the DSS development process (Fischer and Giaccardi 2004; Fischer 2010). Power (2002; 2003; 2013) perceived the architecture approach within DSS projects to evaluate the DSS technology. The DSS concept was defined and discovered as a DSS architecture background (Holsapple 2008). Sprague-Carlson designed the paradigm: Data-Dialogue-Modeling (DDM) as a DSS architecture (Sprague and Carlson 1982). The following research (Stanek 1999; Stanek and Sroka 2000) and enterprise studies (Twardowski et al. 2011; Stanek et al. 2013; Stanek et al. 2022) developed the extensions of the DDM paradigm. The solution DDMKCC includes six, rather than three, components: (1) data, (2) dialogue, (3) modeling, (4) knowledge, (5) communication, and (6) creativity. The development of DDMKCC as a DSS meta-design methodology allowed showing the knowledge component in a new way (Stanek et al. 2022). Nowadays, DSS meta-design methodology is developing the knowledge component with the collaboration of knowledge workers because of changing role of BI systems and the big data approach. Knowledge is based on knowledge workers’ experience. The new model joined a new type of organization, distinguished by combining the knowledge of various specialists. We have called this type of enterprise the “collaborative community.” Collaborative communities encourage people to constantly use their unique talents for group endeavors and to be motivated by a shared mission rather than for personal gain or the pleasure of unfettered creativity. Thanks to the marriage of a sense of common purpose with the organizational structures supporting this goal, collaborative enterprises use the talents and expertise of knowledge workers for the needs of flexible and manageable projects based on teamwork with organizational smartness and mobility. This approach promotes innovation, agility, efficiency, and scalability. An increasing number of companies including IT companies like IBM, Microsoft, and Google are benefiting from this organization model.

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Process Improvement Proposals for Sustainability Support Autonomy and Repeatability of Processes Using BPM BPM systems enable the definition and management of information exchange within the enterprise by using the semantics of business processes. The processes include employees, customers, business partners, and utilization of IT systems and databases. BPM systems are IT tools that provide managers with the ability to monitor the implementation of business processes to understand them better and change them to achieve better results. The BPM standard provides companies with an understanding of their internal business procedures, using graphical notations to optimize their communication processes (Silver 2009). In addition, the graphical notation makes it easier to understand the collaboration and performance of commercial transactions between organizations. It enables enterprises to get to know themselves and the participants in their activities in network organization, which allows them to adapt to new internal situations and changes in the external economic situation (Sobolewska 2020). Modeling is used to show the functioning of the process, while parameterized process models are used to simulate the implementation of processes, which are called prototypes. The creation of value for the customer resulting from the models is done by providing process maps. The main purpose of their creation is to describe business processes for simplification, as well as optimization and elimination, in such a way that products and services are cheaper, faster, and easily available (Hunt 1996). At the same time, mapping or modeling fulfills such tasks as (Stajniak 2009): • a better-shared understanding of processes in terms of activities, structures, and outputs; • outlining a method of process improvement; • responsibility for individual activities; • determination of the scope of processes and their limitations. Currently, the dominant trend is a gradual change in the approach to BPM (Ziemba and Obłąk 2013). Until a few years ago, before BPM gained the rank of a well-known and fully-fledged discipline, institutions were looking for solutions to specific problems related to processes. The initiative to implement such targeted projects usually came from the owners of problems such as people or departments for whom specific problems made their daily work difficult. Behind these projects, as a rule, there was no broader vision, but a simple motivation: “to solve the problem.” Solution providers faced with such tasks often saw in them an opportunity to apply BPM tools and technical solutions. In most cases, a suboptimal manual process was replaced with a more or less automated managed process, which increased efficiency and allowed to reduce the risk of errors. However, such early projects should be considered tactical initiatives, even if they have generated significant business value over the years. For business process adaptability for sustainability, it has been noticed that many companies are taking the next step, and after the first BPM projects they are starting

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to implement BPM systems/platforms on a larger scale to replicate and develop successful solutions on a wider spectrum of processes. The BPM system consists of a series of new projects based on previous projects that are usually “adjacent” to them in terms of scope. In the context of the BPM platform, a number of projects supporting workflows can be identified, prioritized, and correlated with the most important initiatives in the field of process improvement. As a result, BPM systems are more strategic in nature and become comprehensive solutions covering a range of business functions. The BPM system is a way that allows enterprises to scale the management of business processes. In many companies, the implementation of the BPM system follows the next stage; the creation of a business process management culture in which each employee is aware of the goals in the field of process improvement at the personal, organizational, and enterprise levels. Employees have full knowledge of the status of achieving these goals and have the tools to support the implementation of daily tasks in a manner conducive to their implementation.

Knowledge Management as a Basis for a Dynamic ACM Approach The postulate that led to the creation of a new IT system standard called ACM— “Adaptive Business Case Management” or “Adaptive Case Management” (van Aalst and Berens 2001)—is a departure from the control flow perspective commonly used in the BPM field in favor of the data perspective. The risk of improving business processes can be significantly reduced with Adaptive Case Management (ACM) or Dynamic Business Case Management. Due to the need to ensure the speed of actions expected by the client and the number of parallel processes, the owner of a traditional BPM process is not able to analyze, decide and introduce changes to it on an ongoing basis. In the case of ACM, this burden is shifted to knowledge workers. By their rights, they (and not only process leaders as before) must be able to introduce changes to the ongoing process on an ongoing basis. To more accurately manage processes, the course of which cannot be predicted due to their complexity and a large number of decision-making conditions, organizations are increasingly opting for an adaptive process management system i.e., case management. Dynamic case management (or business cases) functions as Adaptive Case Management (ACM) or Dynamic Case Management (DCM). This solution helps to manage difficult, unstructured processes that run unpredictably, and most often are also processes where decisions are the most expensive and complex. Classic transaction processing systems based on BPM platforms face serious problems in the event of unpredictable adaptive changes and dynamic business processes (Szelągowski 2019). In the case of a knowledge worker, we have full access to information about a given case/process. Knowledge workers are a new category of specialists whose primary task is the productive use and exchange of knowledge. They are responsible

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for creating and implementing new ideas, thanks to which organizations adjust their strategy to the ever faster changes in the business environment. Their basic task is to search, exchange, combine, and use knowledge within the organization and beyond its borders. The term “case” (or “business case”) is a generalization of any activity of the so-called knowledge workers whose performance, according to Peter Drucker (1999), is the greatest challenge of the twenty-first century. The concept of ACM has many important features, such as the life cycle of a case, a set of documents and procedures, and a dynamically shaped community of knowledge workers who handle cases (Svenson 2010). Contrary to classic BPM, processes defined in ACM tools are dynamic. These processes are defined only during their execution. To facilitate the management of processes, the course of which cannot be predicted due to their complexity and a large number of decision-making conditions, organizations are increasingly opting for an adaptive process management system. The ACM is giving full visibility and full control over a specific case, whether it is handled by a defined process, an ad hoc process, or a combination of both. The company managed under the ACM concept combines inextricably the daily ability to create and verify innovations extensively with the core business. Due to the possibility of dynamic changes in processes by their contractors, the entire enterprise management system becomes open to creative initiatives of a wide range of employee without the risk of chaos that would be threatened by uncontrolled changes in the rules of operation. Additionally, having the ability to track the effects of changes, it is possible to join the collective knowledge of the organization with information about which practices and solutions bring the best and which the worst results. It is real, everyday improvement and adaptation of business processes based on the knowledge of a wide range of employees verified by the client. Initially, in the 1990s, attempts were made to create and implement business processes that could be changed over time using the BPM and Agile methodology. However, neither the time needed to make the change nor the costs of such operations were satisfactory. The dynamic management of business processes introduced by ACM allows organizations to build and develop the ability to perceive and adapt to react quickly and best to changes in market expectations and requirements. ACM systems enable further optimization of business activities, in particular improving timeliness, reducing operating costs, and increasing the effectiveness of process management implementation owing to: • limiting the description of processes to initial modeling or modeling of their known, constant elements and further detailing, using the system’s “learning” mechanism; • significant acceleration of the improvement of processes by enabling changes to the implemented processes by their contractors or leaders in an evolutionary or step-by-step manner; • enabling the immediate dissemination of knowledge contained in the introduced process innovations.

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BPM and ACM Methods in IT Systems Implementation for Sustainability Support For several years, the awareness of the value and possibilities of BPM and ACM solutions has been more and more common in enterprises in which the success of the first tactical projects had a significant share. At the same time, projects are gradually shifting from the hands of the business divisions to the IT department as processes are standardized based on the common technology platform. This applies to both processes related to the company’s core business as well as any other processes in the enterprise. While the selection of the software package is an enterprise-wide strategic decision, these solutions were initially implemented as part of pilot programs to familiarize yourself with the new technology. Looking from the point of view of a specific organization, we usually notice that the implemented processes are differentiated, among others, in terms of unpredictability, the intensity of knowledge, and generally the nature of the process. This means that differentiated solutions such as BPM, and ACM/DCM are useful (Berniak – Woźny and Szelągowski 2021; Zelt 2019). The analysis of research reports of consulting companies Gartner and Forester indicates the continuous development of software supporting BPM and ACM/DCM. In particular, as we know, Gartner withdrew the 2021 Magic Quadrant report on the iBPMS smart BPM packages market, replacing it with a report on the business process automation (BPA) tools market. The explanation indicated that BPA is a natural evolution of iBPMS aimed at a higher level of automation of tasks previously carried out by iBPMS. BPA tools have the abilities of both the attended type—the BPA bot is launched and supervised by a human and unattended—the BPA bot does not require user interaction and rather launches the back-office process. Their functionality includes low-code application development, process mining, task mining, document management, artificial intelligence/machine learning, and process analysis (Hoang et al. 2023; Szelągowski et al. 2022; Szelągowski and Lupeikiene 2020; Stanek 2016). A significant share is played by open-source software and interoperability applications, which facilitates the construction of IT platforms tailored to the needs of the organization. Of course, the availability of an IT platform does not mean uniform implementation methodology and process improvement. An interesting methodological solution was developed in the doctoral dissertation (Osuszek 2020) as the PROEVAL 360 method based on the integration of ACM and BPM methods. The integration of business processes with ACM and BPM gives the ability for improvement sustainability support on broader considerations regarding the comparison of risks related to ACM and BPM solutions. On the one hand, ACM reduces the risks associated with the dynamics of process changes; on the other hand, after its introduction, secondary risks appear, for instance, related to the retention of knowledge workers, their loyalty, and the security of more extensive and intensively processed confidential information. The above-mentioned trend of increased automation provided by the latest BPM systems reduces the secondary risks of ACM. The integration of BPM and ACM issues on a common methodological and IT platform lowers the barrier related to the difficulty of use, costs, time management,

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implementation, maintenance, and the need for continuous learning, and also strengthens the synergy effect related to the use of a set of tools tailored to the needs.

Case Studies of Sustainable Decision-Making in IT Company The field of process and business case management (BPM and ACM) is developing very dynamically. For several years, companies have been familiarizing themselves with the concept of BPM and ACM and implementing projects aimed at the implementation of relatively narrow-scale pilot projects to learn about the capabilities of systems for managing static and dynamic business processes (BPM Suite and ACM) and to define their potential uses. The model of implementing an IT system supporting BPM must differ from the traditional, classic model of IT systems implementation. The success of these first projects and pilot programs has encouraged many companies to take BPM initiatives to the next level and move from single projects to broader programs/initiatives to optimize the organization’s business processes more comprehensively. The most powerful group of described systems are intelligent DSSs. A combination of artificial intelligence and DSS gives a powerful tool for sustainable decision-making processes in companies. Nowadays, when trends and any economic phenomena are high-dynamic, companies need to process huge amounts of data. They cannot do this without any systems with big data (Power and Heavin 2017) and AI technology (Turban and Aronson 2001). The case study of the IT system’s implementation based on a meta-design model with BPM and ACM was developed in one of the IT companies, Consorg SA. To implement the strategic assumptions of implementing the new system, which was to improve the profitability of implemented projects and streamline processes in the organization, it was decided that the new system must be integrated with the current IT infrastructure of the company (Stanek et al. 2022). As part of the development of the BI system in Consorg SA, the DDMKCC model was used to develop a methodology for building intelligent DSSs implemented by agile methodologies. The example of a sustainable decision-making process system in an IT company was focused on the design and implementation of a data analysis system, where the main tasks of which are to assist the company management in making daily basis decisions with assets of the time consumption by consultants and tasks.

Conclusions This chapter describes the solid foundation for a sustainable support system: ACM and BPM methods with meta-design methodology. Such a foundation opens the way for the organization to scale the implementation system and improve business processes. It also enables such a system to bring the company the greatest possible business value.

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The field of process and business case management (BPM and ACM) is developing very dynamically. For several years, enterprises have been familiarizing themselves with the concept of BPM and ACM, implementing projects aimed at the implementation of relatively narrow-scale pilot projects in order to learn about the capabilities of static and dynamic business process management systems (BPM Suite and ACM) and identifying their potential applications. The model of implementing an IT system supporting BPM must differ from the traditional, classic model of IT systems implementation. The success of these projects has encouraged many companies to take BPM initiatives to the next level and move from single projects to broader programs or initiatives to optimize the organizations’ business processes more comprehensively due to sustainable development with different knowledge management methods, i.e. ACM. The methods should allow for the adaptation of the organization’s processes to the current needs, including checking further hypotheses or new action scenarios for decision-makers in sustainable development. Thanks to these properties, it can be successfully used in the modeling and analysis of various classes of decision problems in the field of almost any problem area in the organization. This change raises a number of questions for future studies: How to implement the procedures for selecting, creating, deploying, and using enterprise process management applications? What procedures should be followed to make the most of the components and experiences of previous projects in each subsequent project to achieve the appropriate “economies of scale?” The very rapid development of technology and methodology, for which there are still no extensive applications, e.g. BPA tools, was a limitation for current research. As it was declared above, it will be taken up as a challenge in further research.

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Pro-Environmental Engagement of ICT Enterprises in Poland as an Expression of Sustainable Development Dorota Teneta-Skwiercz*, Hanna Sikacz and Marta Lesiewska Wrocław University of Economics and Business, Komandorska 118/120, 53-345 Wrocław, Poland; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]

Introduction The importance of the ICT sector is soaring worldwide. On the one hand, the rapid growth of this sector and, on the other hand, the worsening environmental problems have led to increasing questions being asked about the impact this sector has on society, the economy, and the state of the environment. For instance, a search of the literature reveals studies that address the environmental costs of building a digital economy or how ICT companies manage scarce resources (Moar and Ward 2021). It is not difficult to see that authors’ attempts to define the environmental impact of the sector in question often cause consternation and a sense of powerlessness. This is because only the direct environmental and social impacts of ICT can be assessed relatively quickly. The indirect effects of technology use (such as through ICT products in other sectors) are challenging to diagnose (Martinuzzi et al. 2011). Undoubtedly, ICT products and services permeate almost all areas of our lives, bringing about social, economic, and political changes (Goliński 2015). These changes are not always positive. Research shows that the ICT sector is consuming more and more natural resources, including rare earth elements. Each phase of the life cycle of ICT products, i.e. design, use, and consumption, causes environmental damage. It is estimated that the current contribution of ICT to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is between 2.1% and 3.9% (Freitag et al. 2021). Thus, further growth of this sector will contribute significantly to global warming and climate change. Therefore, it is not surprising that there is increasing pressure on ICT companies to operate sustainably i.e., respecting the social and natural environment. *Corresponding author: [email protected]

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In Poland, ICT is assigned a strategic role in making the idea of sustainable development (SD) a reality. However, so far, the sector has not been diagnosed in terms of its involvement in environmental issues. The authors of the study formulated the research problem in the form of the following question: What importance do ICT companies attribute to sustainability issues? This chapter identifies and assesses the importance of ICT companies in Poland in terms of environmental issues related to SD.

Sustainability in the ICT Sector The Rationale for Interest in SD Seen as a cornerstone of the knowledge economy and a critical factor in the competitiveness of national economies (Karahan 2016; Enowbi Batuo 2015), ICT is undoubtedly one of the drivers of globalization (Sylwestrzak 2018). There are many factors that influence the development of the ICT sector and the resulting social and environmental issues (Sisco and MacAvoy 2008) including: • Rapid innovation and obsolescence of legacy solutions: Software evolves not only following improvements in programming languages but also based on changes in hardware capabilities and user needs. Compared to other industries, the pace of change in the ICT sector is more intense and disruptive, meaning that companies and technologies appear and disappear at a rapid rate. • Increased computer, network, and storage capacity: Microprocessors continue to grow in performance, and networks worldwide are expanding in terms of coverage and capacity. Server farms are being created to store the world’s digital knowledge. • The massive proliferation of devices: Furthermore, there is an increasing number of device types on which software runs, such as servers, computers, mobile phones, personal digital assistants, network equipment, household appliances, consumer electronics, billboards, etc. • Contribution to economic growth: The ICT sector is playing an increasingly important role in the economy, not only by driving employment growth, tax revenues, and workforce development, but also through indirect economic effects such as stimulating the development of new business models, increasing the productivity of the workforce, and increasing the demand for goods and services. The environmental impact of ICT companies is two-sided, both positive and negative. On the one hand, such companies are credited with being a catalyst for the transition to an energy-efficient and low-carbon economy (Bibri 2009). This is because software underpins almost all intelligent solutions used to support the environment. For instance, it is a critical factor in projects oriented toward solving deforestation and reducing emissions. Furthermore, according to A. Hoeltl, the ICT sector has the potential to force companies to implement corporate social responsibility concepts. When companies are aware that information about their practices can be effectively disseminated globally through ICT, they will be more willing to take responsibility

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for their activities (Hoeltl 2015). At the same time, it is noted that as the sector grows, its contribution to global energy consumption and CO2 emissions increases (Di Salvo et al. 2017; Paruchuri 2011). It is estimated that more than 80% of the environmental impact of ICT products is determined during the product design phase (Transform Together n.d.). Undoubtedly, a modular design, the material used in the hardware, and in the case of software, computing power are all crucial to ensuring the environmentally friendly use of ICT products. It is not only PCs, mobile phones, chargers, IPTV boxes, and broadband routers that contribute to the ICT industry’s carbon footprint, but also software (Sissa 2009). The way it is configured affects energy consumption when the hardware is used. In addition, the replacement of outdated infrastructure due to the introduction of successive software versions is a burden on the environment (Kern et al. 2018). The high energy intensity of data centers should also be mentioned at this point. They currently consume around 2% of global electricity. It has been predicted that they could consume up to 8% by 2030 (Podder et al. 2020). Unfortunately, due to the lack of accurate data, it is difficult to answer the question of whether the energy consumption of ICTs is greater or less than the energy savings achieved through these technologies (Dick et al. 2014). The possibility of a kind of “rebound effect,” i.e., a situation in which energy savings achieved through pro-environmental technologies created by the sector are negated by the increasing scale of ICT companies’ activities, must not be discounted. In the face of the negative externalities described above, there are views that the ICT industry will soon need to prioritize environmental issues such as climate change and carbon footprint, the creation of green technologies, water management, and waste management (George et al. 2021). According to Business for Social Responsibility, the software industry’s most significant contribution to sustainability will be to create and deliver innovative products and services that accelerate change in how people, businesses, communities, and information networks operate to achieve SD. To do this, software companies need to understand how their applications can serve as sustainability solutions. This requires a new perspective on product and service development, including a careful examination of the industry’s impact. The pressure on ICT companies to operate sustainably i.e., with respect for the social and natural environment, is driven by the expectations of external stakeholders such as consumers, business partners, and environmental organizations. The rapidly increasing regulation of ESG1 issues also plays a significant role in this regard. In March 2021, the Regulation of the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union on Sustainability Disclosures in the Financial Services Sector, known as SFDR (i.e., Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation), came into force. As a result, an increasing number of banks and financial institutions are making a company’s capital support conditional on its sustainability performance. In January 2022, the European Commission published a Declaration of Digital Rights and Principles (European Commission 2021), which explicitly refers to the three abovementioned aspects of ICT businesses, i.e. environmental, social, and governance. 1

ESG is an acronym for three groups of non-financial indicators that companies can use in their business reporting process. These are environmental (Environmental), social (Social) and corporate governance (Corporate Governance) indicators.

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According to its provisions, these technologies should protect human rights, support democracy and ensure that all digital actors operate responsibly and securely. Everyone should have access to the internet, digital skills, fair working conditions, and be able to exercise control over their data. One of the Declaration’s principles is that digital devices should support environmental transformation. From 2023, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) will be in force in the European Union, extending (and making more specific) the non-financial reporting obligation to all companies meeting a minimum of two of the following criteria—€ 40 million net turnover, € 20 million in assets, 250 or more employees. The growing commitment of ICT companies to sustainability is a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, pessimistic climate reports (George et al. 2021), and the sector’s self-regulatory initiatives. Examples of these are codes of ethics for responsible supply chain management (FIAS & BSR 2007), and partnerships with environmentally committed companies such as the Climate Neutral Data Centre (CNDC) pact, the Climate Savers Computing Initiative (CSCI), and the Digital Energy and Sustainability Solutions Campaign (DESSC). ICT companies operating in Europe have signed the Climate Neutral Data Centre agreement, including data center operators and cloud providers. This commits signatories to make their data centers climate neutral through measures such as verifying energy efficiency achievements with measurable targets, purchasing 100% carbon-free energy, emphasizing water conservation, reusing, and repairing servers rather than replacing them with new ones, and actively seeking heat recovery methods (Chustecki 2021). Launched in 2007 by Google and Intel, the Climate Savers Computing Initiative (CSCI) is a nongovernmental organization that brings together industry, consumers, government, and environmental organizations to improve the energy efficiency of computers and servers. CSCI members must commit to producing/purchasing energy-efficient computer products. In addition, the organization is dedicated to educating consumers and IT personnel on how to reduce the electricity consumption of computers without sacrificing performance (Climate Savers Computing Initiative White Paper 2008). The Digital Energy and Sustainability Solutions Campaign (DESSC) was founded in 2008 and brings together ICT companies, associations, NGOs, and other stakeholders who care about improving the environment and stimulating long-term economic growth. The DESSC aims to promote SD through ICT-based solutions, such as intelligent transport systems, building energy management systems, smart logistics, and smart grids (“Intelligent Efficiency: Information Technology Industry Council” n.d.).

Sustainability Action by ICT Companies ICT companies are manifesting their commitment to sustainability by creating ICTbased models for sustainable business management (Hba et al. 2020), working on miniaturization, increasing hardware and software functionality, and introducing eco-labeling. To reduce their carbon footprint, ICT companies are locating their data centers close to sources of green energy production. In addition, they are choosing to migrate processes between data centers depending on the availability of green energy, for example, based on day-night cycles (following the sun) or the availability of wind (following the wind) (Vereecken et al. 2010). Using computers and related

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technologies in an environmentally friendly way, they use energy-efficient processors and peripherals and take care to recycle and dispose of all components properly (Agarwal and Nath 2011). The entry of ICTcompanies into sustainability is accompanied by the development of a corporate environmental policy that calls for environmental leadership in all software-related company activities and the continuous development of innovative technologies that increase energy and material efficiency in future software products (Calero et al. 2019). One manifestation of the implementation of sustainability principles in the ICT sector is the use of infrastructure-sharing technology to optimize data centers and, as a result, increase energy efficiency, decrease the carbon footprint, and reduce e-waste (Di Salvo et al. 2017). “Sustainable” ICT companies not only encourage their employees to engage in pro-environmental practices (such as awarding bonuses based on environmental performance) but also educate consumers about sustainability. For instance, to inform consumers about saving electricity, Nokia places labels on chargers reminding users that they should be unplugged when not in use. There are ICT companies on the market for which sustainability is a cornerstone of their business model. One such example is the company Fairphone. This Dutch company believes that it is possible to do business fairly while caring for the environment. It is committed to reducing waste, so it designs durable and easy-torepair products. It also uses responsibly sourced materials in its production. It is the first and only smartphone company to hold the Fairtrade gold certification (“Our Impact – Fairphone” n.d.). Implementing standards such as B-Corp or TCO Certified is also an expression of the sector’s drive to integrate social and environmental criteria into business operations. What distinguishes B-Corp-certified companies is their investment in projects that create a healthy and inclusive working culture, enable community development, and serve to protect the environment (Fiix 2018). TCO Certified, on the other hand, is a type of ecolabel by ISO 14024, based on criteria such as energy efficiency, product life and safety, and social responsibility, demonstrated, for example, by freedom of association. TCO Certified offers certification for eight product types: displays, notebooks, desktops, all-in-one PCs, tablets, smartphones, projectors, and headsets. The literature shows a skeptical attitude toward the pro-environmental activities of ICT companies (Egorova et al. 2022). Researchers note that these companies often lack the motivation to create sustainable technologies, and practice greenwashing. This is borne out by a KPMG report showing that 45% of technology CEOs find it difficult to link their growth strategy to a broader social purpose. While the majority of them (57%) agree that they need to go beyond purely financial growth and that it is their personal responsibility to make sure their organization’s ESG policy reflects the values of their customers (74%), the report reveals that the stated commitment to ESG issues is not reflected in reality (KPMG 2020). Equally pessimistic in tone are the findings of a survey conducted by Capgemini which reveals that as many as 89% of IT organizations recycle less than 10% of their IT equipment, and 62% of companies in the sector are unaware of or have not implemented sustainable architecture to optimize energy intensity (Capgemini Research Institute 2021).

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Importance of the ICT Sector in Poland In Poland, the ICT sector includes enterprises whose main activity is the production of goods and services that make it possible to record, process, transmit, reproduce, or display information electronically. According to Central Statistical Office (CSO) data, in 2020, the ICT sector in Poland looked as follows (Główny Urząd Statystyczny and Urząd Statystyczny w Szczecinie 2021): • A total of 2,468 companies employing ten people or more were in operation, of which 90.8% provided ICT services; • Just over three-quarters of the companies involved in ICT services were IT service providers; • The number of people working in the sector was 269,000, of whom eight out of ten worked in ICT services; • Net revenue from sales amounted to PLN 189.1 billion and increased by 11.0% year on year. Services were the most significant contributor to the ICT sector’s revenue. Their share in the revenues of the entire ICT sector was 80.8%. Companies producing ICT products earned almost two-thirds of their revenues from export sales, while companies offering ICT services earned just over a quarter; • Exports of ICT products accounted for 7.4% of total exports and were 0.8 percentage points higher than a year before. The share of imports of ICT products in total imports was 9.1%, up by 1.4 percentage points from the previous year. The value of exports of ICT products increased year-on-year by PLN 38.9 billion, while imports grew by PLN 14.3 billion. The same report states that between 2018 and 2020, product innovation or business process innovation was introduced by almost one in three enterprises in Poland (31.1%). Among the entities categorized as part of the ICT sector, nearly half (47.2%) implemented such innovation, and these were more often service enterprises (47.7%) than manufacturing enterprises (43.0%). The Polish ICT sector is characterized by high fragmentation and a large share of one-person companies. The entities forming the sector generally work in a software house model, are mainly involved in programming, and are subcontractors for other companies, often international ones (Digital Sustainability Forum 2019). There are over 850 shared service centers in Poland, employing more than 193,000 employees, 37% of whom are IT specialists. Companies like IBM, HP, Intel, Nokia, and Samsung have their own centers. In addition to custom software development, BPO (business process outsourcing), and ITO (information technology outsourcing) services, Polish ICT companies specialize in creating computer games. The most popular titles are those published by entities such as CD Project Red (the “Witcher” series), Techland (“Dead Island,” “Dying Light” and CI Games (the “Sniper” series). The importance of the ICT sector in the Polish economy is growing dynamically. By 2025, the key trends in this sector will be cloud technologies, big data, the Internet of Things (IoT), and cyber security (PARP 2017). Among the benefits mentioned in government documents associated with the development of the ICT market in Poland are an increase in productivity and labor efficiency, improvement of

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social welfare, and rationalization of spending in individual sectors of the economy but also optimization of the use of resources (Ministerstwo Rozwoju 2017). This demonstrates the sector’s almost strategic role in making SD a reality. This raises the question of whether ICT companies can meet these expectations. The answer is complicated, as Poland’s ICT sector has not yet been diagnosed in terms of its involvement in environmental issues. The research results presented in this study may, at least to a small extent, bridge this gap.

Description of the Survey of ICT Companies The authors of the study did not set hypotheses or assume a priori a particular picture. Instead, they formulated the research problem by the following question: What importance do ICT companies attribute to sustainability issues? The following specific questions were also formulated for the study: • What is the level of awareness and knowledge in ICT companies about the environmental impact of their activities? • What importance do the entities studied attribute to environmental certification and reporting on environmental issues? • What kinds of measures do they take to reduce their negative impact on the environment? There is no single best way to obtain information, as each option can accurately capture a specific aspect of the phenomenon under study while at the same time introducing a particular error (Denzin 2009). Thus, researchers do not have to and, should not, choose between quantitative and qualitative methods, as both are helpful and legitimate in social research. Their simultaneous use ensures a thorough explanation of the phenomenon under study (Babbie 2008). Including different perspectives in a study helps ensure the reliability, credibility, and accuracy of its conclusions, as well as facilitating the verification of the information obtained. That is because triangulation makes it possible to minimize the imperfections and drawbacks of using research methods separately (Konecki 2000). With the above in mind, the authors of this study opted for methodological triangulation (the so-called methodological third path) (Chlipała 2014) and data triangulation. Data and information were obtained through CAWI (ComputerAssisted Web Interview) surveys, which are appropriate for quantitative methods. Qualitative methods such as an expert panel were also used. The panel, which included experts from NGOs, consulting firms, and representatives from the world of science and business practice specializing in sustainable development, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), and ESG, served to discuss the results of the research and formulate recommendations for implementing the concept of SD in ICT companies (the so-called 7 steps to sustainable development). The invitation to participate in the survey was extended to several hundred companies of different sizes with Polish capital operating in the “Software and Computer Services” sector. The respondents were executives or persons responsible for coordinating activities related to implementing the sustainability concept or related concepts such as CSR and ESG. Sub-domains of the companies covered

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by the survey were: application software, IT consulting and other services, data processing and outsourced services, Internet services and infrastructure, and system software and hardware. The survey was conducted between October and December 2021. The environmental engagement questions were developed based on issues considered relevant to the ICT sector, employing, among others, non-financial reporting systems commonly used by investors (e.g., GRI, UN Global Compact) and ESG/ESG risk ratings (e.g. Refinitiv, Bloomberg, Sustainalytics).

Pro-Environmental Initiatives of ICT Enterprises A total of 66 organizations participated in the survey. Analysis of the collected data was hampered by the fact that 33 entities answered all 15 questions, mainly of a closed nature, concerning environmental aspects, while the others submitted partially completed questionnaires. Hence, the differences in the total number of responses to individual questions. The average number of employees in 2020 (of all employees and permanent collaborators on exclusive contracts, regardless of the legal form) among the companies studied is around 120 (with a minimum of six people, a maximum of 824 people, and a median of 49.5 people). Sustainability issues were reported by 30 companies in the study. Among the entities that submitted the survey, ten acknowledged that their mission or vision statement included references to the environmental impact of their activities. Eighteen companies had appointed people to coordinate sustainability, CSR, or ESG activities. In three cases, this was done according to the United Nations Global Compact. A small number of companies reported under initiatives such as the Neutral Data Centre Pact and the European Green Digital Coalition. None of the companies used GRI (Global Reporting Initiative), a recognized standard for reporting non-financial information. When asked into which goals of Agenda 20302 activities undertaken to reduce the negative impact on the environment fit, the companies most often indicated (Figure 1): • Goal 13. Climate action: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts (eight cases); • Goal 11. Sustainable Cities and Communities: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable (seven cases); • Goal 12. Responsible Consumption and Production: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns (seven cases); • Goal 7. Affordable and Clean Energy: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all (five cases); • Goal 6. Clean Water and Sanitation: Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all (four cases); 2

The Agenda for Sustainable Development (2030 Agenda) was adopted in 2015 by 193 UN member states. It consists of 17 Sustainable Development Goals. For each goal, specific tasks to be achieved by 2030 are written out as a total of 169 tasks.

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Figure 1. The popularity of the SD Goals among the ICT companies studied (Source: Author’s own work)

• Goal 14. Life Below Water: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas, and marine resources for SD (two cases), • Goal 15. Life on Land: Protect, restore, and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss (two cases). The pro-environmental solutions most frequently implemented by ICT companies were (in order of popularity): • • • • • • • • •

The ability to work remotely (93%); Promoting cycling or taking public transport to work (64%); Using filtered water from the tap/multiple large bottles (64%); Reduction in paper consumption, e.g. double-sided printing, electronic document circulation (64%); Use of cloud services – unknown power sources (52%); Availability of vegetarian meals (if employees are offered meals at all in the company) (38%); Education on how to switch off electricity, and disconnect computers/monitors from power sources (36%); Organic cleaning products (36%); Use of recycled paper (31%);

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• Use of cloud services based on RES (19%); • Closed water systems (2.4%). Respondents occasionally mentioned solutions, such as a composter in the office, using the heat produced by servers to heat their office building, and installing electric car charging stations on the company’s premises. In answer to the question about waste segregation, 7% of the companies admitted that they do not segregate waste, while the rest segregate into two (28%), four (36%), or five or more categories (29%) (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Structure of responses to the question “How is waste segregation carried out in your company?” among the studied companies in the ICT sector (Source: Author’s own work)

In 48% of cases, electro-waste is handed over to a specialized company that collects and disposes of it, while 35% of entities hand it over to a particular collection point for municipal waste. Small businesses (4%) store electro-waste on company premises (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Structure of responses to the question “How does your company deal with electro-waste?” among the studied companies in the ICT sector (Source: Author’s own work)

Nearly half of the companies studied do not measure and do not plan to measure their carbon footprint. The vast majority of companies (78%) do not generate or purchase energy from renewable energy sources (RES), e.g. photovoltaic panels, wind or biomass/biogas/water, and only a tiny percentage (9%) buy energy with a certificate of origin from renewable sources from the operator or produce such

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energy (e.g., through photovoltaics). In three cases, 100% of energy use is from RES. In addition, three of the companies studied have set GHG reduction targets. Another question asked about the frequency of information and training activities (mailings, signage in the workplace, and discussions during meetings) for employees to promote environmentally friendly behavior. These included behaviors to save energy and reduce the consumption of raw materials, such as turning off unused electronic equipment and lights, eliminating plastic, reducing paper consumption, choosing eco-friendly packaging, and buying from local suppliers. Of the 42 companies that responded to this question, 38% do not carry out such activities, while such activities are carried out once every few years by 7% of companies, with 43% of companies carrying out such activities once a year, once a quarter, once a month or more than once a month (in 12% of cases there was no knowledge of such activities) (Figure 4).

Figure 4. Structure of responses to the question “How often do you conduct information and training activities for your employees on promoting pro-environmental behavior regarding energy saving and the reduction of raw material consumption?” among the studied ICT companies (Source: Author’s own work)

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, companies were asked to assess the change in the intensity of their sustainability activities during this period compared to before the pandemic. In terms of climate protection, for 32% of companies, the intensity of their actions remained the same, while 24% intensified their efforts, 61% of companies plan to increase the number or scope of their sustainability actions in the coming years, and 21% of companies do not plan to increase their climate protection commitment. The environmental certification confirms for organizations that their activities comply with the adopted specific rules, procedures, and processes aimed at protecting the environment. Surveys show that the most commonly used certification systems are ISO 9001 and ISO/IEC 27001. Individual companies have systems such as ISO13485, B-Corp, and ISO 14001. None of the companies indicated ISO 22301 or carbon neutral. The level of awareness among ICT enterprises of the environmental impact of software was also assessed during the research process. Only 12% of the companies studied analyze how the software they use and offer (at the design, development, and implementation stages) affects energy consumption, while 76% do not, and 12% do not know anything about this.

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Another question concerned the pro-environmental software solutions used by the studied companies. Thus, real-time monitoring at the software implementation stage, such as dynamic code analysis of energy consumption (e.g., elimination of duplicate data or compression of data into smaller energy-saving fragments), is used by 19% of enterprises. Developing a strategy to determine the appropriate level of tolerance for the environmental effects of software is used by 10% of companies when analyzing the software development lifecycle to minimize the environmental footprint of an application. Making recommendations on, for instance, algorithms, programming languages, APIs, and libraries to minimize carbon emissions are used by 5% of the companies studied, while 2% of companies have tools that allow application users to gain an insight into the carbon footprint of their IT infrastructure. The second stage of the study was the expert panel. Its main objective was to formulate recommendations on implementing the concept of SD in companies in the ICT sector. According to the experts, the following actions (the so-called 7 Kim steps to SD) need to be taken: Step 1. Building awareness of ESG issues: As a first step, a company should take an interest in ESG issues and realize the importance of these issues in the context of operational, financial, investment, and marketing activities. Step 2. Conduct a self-diagnosis: At this stage, it is essential to know the strengths and weaknesses of the business in the context of sustainability challenges. Good knowledge of what ESG-related activities are undertaken in the company is the basis for the following steps: working on an ESG strategy and reporting. Step 3. Build an ESG strategy: This strategy aims to outline the environmental, social, and governance factors that the organization and its key stakeholders consider essential and that must be considered in current and future business activities. The ESG strategy provides the company with a framework for observing its progress toward its sustainability goals and allows it to verify, through named and measurable ESG metrics, the effectiveness of its actions in building corporate value. A consequence of the strategy’s development and implementation is the company’s reporting of ESG issues. Step 4. ESG reporting: It is worth structuring sustainability activities according to existing and widely recognized standards. There are many initiatives on the market from which to draw inspiration regarding non-financial reporting, from the UN SD Goals, the UN Global Compact, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), and the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) to the Task Force for Climate-Related Disclosures (TCFD), the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), and the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR). There are also ESG ratings and ESG risks (Refinitiv, Bloomberg, Sustainalytics, ISS ESG, MSCI), certifications, and benchmarks developed by global stock exchanges. Each has its specificities and highlights different aspects, targeting the needs of a diverse stakeholder group. The implementation of reporting increases operation transparency and supports decisionmaking processes at every management level.

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Step 5. Creating “sustainable” products: Creating new products should be done with care for the environment and society while ensuring the highest management standards. Step 6. Future orientation: The idea of sustainability should be embedded in the company’s day-to-day running. This does not mean striving for distant, lofty, global goals, especially in the case of small and medium-sized enterprises, but undertaking at least minor pro-environmental initiatives, taking into account the specificity and possibilities of a given enterprise. Step 7. Building cross-sectoral partnerships: Based on the assumption that complex problems can only be solved when organizations with complementary and supporting competencies actively cooperate, it is recommended to share ideas, risks, resources, commitments, and tasks as well as build cross-sectoral partnerships. Their aim, with complete openness and transparency, and equality among the participants should be to improve the ability to do business in line with stakeholder expectations in a sustainable way that not only generates more profit but also protects the environment and builds social well-being.

Conclusions Asurvey of ICT companies in Poland in the context of sustainability challenges paints a less-than-optimistic picture of the sector. The awareness of environmental difficulties among ICT companies is at a low level. The approach to environmental issues is disorganized, somewhat superficial, and dictated by economic benefits. Employees are involved in sustainability activities to a limited extent. It can be assumed that they underestimate the environmental impact of ICT companies’ activities. This is evidenced, for instance, by the low interest in obtaining environmental certification or reporting on sustainability issues. It is hard not to get the impression that most of the ICT companies studied do not understand the environmental return on investment and think about the environment as if looking for savings. This explains the high popularity of remote working. At the same time, there is little interest in activities that require more significant commitment and financial investment, such as measuring carbon footprint, low-carbon software solutions or using renewable energy. The studied entities rarely opt for solutions that can negatively affect the comfort of employees and managers (e.g., reducing business travel with the highest carbon footprint). The research is not free of limitations in terms of content (it concerned only one environmental aspect of SD) and methodology (an exclusively descriptive depiction of reality, a small sample size, and a lack of representativeness). Nevertheless, it should be noted that it is pioneering in character. In the authors’ opinion, the study can help ICT companies to perceive the impact their activities have on the environment and to identify and systematize pro-environmental activities, which are so important nowadays for corporate clients, end users, business partners, and financial institutions.

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Future research should be devoted to identifying ICT companies’ social and corporate governance activities. To fully understand the involvement of these entities in sustainability and ESG issues, and to grasp the causes of the observed phenomena, as well as the cause-effect relationships, it would seem necessary to conduct exploratory research.

Acknowledgments The project is financed by the Ministry of Education and Science in Poland under the program “Regional Initiative of Excellence” 2019–2023 project number 015/RID/2018/19 total funding amount of 10 721 040,00 PLN.

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The State of Research on Cognitive Technologies for Sustainable Business Processes Marcin Hernes*, Ewa Walaszczyk, Krzysztof Nowosielski and Agata Kozina Department of Process Management, Wroclaw University of Economics and Business, Poland; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]

Introduction Traditional business models include creating and delivering value for the customer, and generating revenue for the company. Increasing resource consumption, growing social inequalities, and climate change make companies pay more attention to their social and environmental surroundings. Traditional business models do not incorporate social and environmental issues and therefore must be turned into sustainable models to meet these new challenges. Sustainability in a business context broadens the definition of a business model to include social and ecological objectives (Niemeyer et al. 2022). A sustainable business (SB) should be supported by modern information and communication technology (ICT). This is not only an a priori thesis but a rational approach to sustainability business challenges, which can be addressed in a similar way as other business cases that effectively use it to solve decision-making problems. ICT can become the key factor for sustainability as a paradigm for modern business. It can significantly help in eliminating the economic and social divide, achieving economic and social development, and protecting the environment. As such, ICT may support all three dimensions of SB: environmental, social, and economic (Nchofoung and Asongu 2022; Ziemba 2020; Ziemba 2021). Business sustainability is often a result of digitalization, which enables the realization of socio-environmental technology‐based projects (Evangelista and Hallikas 2022). One of the emerging ICTs is cognitive technologies (CT). CTs are perceived in a broad sense (machine learning, including deep learning, genetic algorithms and evolutionary programs, fuzzy systems, probabilistic systems, etc.) and a strict sense *Corresponding author: [email protected]

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(technologies implementing the cognitive cycle: perception, understanding, decision, action, and learning) (Figure 1) (Snaider et al. 2011).

Figure 1. Diagram of the cognitive cycle (Source: Author’s research)

As a rule, CT is perceived as a process in the broad sense, mainly in terms of numerical knowledge. CTs are perceived in the strict sense process knowledge represented in a symbolic and hybrid way. Therefore, they allow acquiring and analyzing information, reasoning, and responding to signals from the environment. They have learning based on interaction with the environment. The features of CT allow for the automatic generation of proposals of decisions, taking and implementing the decisions (Duch et al. 2008; Hernes 2019). There are many works related to the use of CT in the broad sense to support business processes (e.g. Kratsch et al. 2021; Wang and Zhang 2020). There are no publications, however, concerning the use of CT in supporting business processes in the strict sense. As such, this research is related to CT perceived in the strict sense. The research problem identified is the lack of knowledge in terms of supporting and improving SB processes with the use of CT. The following research questions were posed: RQ1: Which business processes are currently supported by CT? RQ2: Which CT architectures are used to support SB processes? RQ3: What are the main challenges of applying CT to support SB processes? RQ4: What are the main new research gaps related to the application of CT in supporting SB processes? These questions identified a research gap, namely which business processes can be supported by CT but are not supported yet, and which architectures can be used for this purpose but are not used yet. The aim of the chapter is to present the possibilities of using CT in supporting SB processes by identifying and exploring processes not supported by CT (research gap), which could be improved by using CT. An analysis of theoretical and practical approaches to the application of CT in supporting SB is presented. This chapter

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delivers up-to-date bibliometric research dealing with different processes powered by CT.

SB Definitions and Main Theories SB is defined quite clearly in theory and practice at a general level. It can be described as the company’s ability to create long-term value by seizing opportunities and managing the risks resulting from the organization’s environmental, social, and economic responsibilities (AlQershi et al. 2022). Most definitions of sustainability concerns promote the indefinite existence of human systems. That is why a balance is required between the carrying capacity of the ecosystem and human economic and social systems (Chang et al. 2017; Elkington 1997). The research carried out by Chang et al. (2017) shows that there are four main theories linking sustainability with business practice. As Montiel shows in his research, these concepts are not alternatives to themselves but are closely related (Montiel 2008). These theories are (Chang et al. 2017): • • • •

Corporate social responsibility; Stakeholder theory; Corporate sustainability; and Green economics.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) refers to the obligations of business persons to pursue those policies, make relevant decisions, or follow such lines of action, which are desirable in terms of the objectives and values of society. The human aspect and the importance of the social factor in business activities are, therefore, the first and, as it may seem, the most important components of CSR (Lindgreen and Swaen 2010). This leads us to the second concept—Stakeholder Theory (ST). According to this concept, business attention should be paid to the expectations of different groups or individuals, who affect or can be affected by the achievement of the organization’s objectives. Compared to a CSR concept, ST distinguishes further indirect stakeholders, such as the government, environmentalists, and other special interest groups. ST also draws attention to the multi-directional relationship between businesses and stakeholders (Freeman et al. 2010). Corporate Sustainability (CS) in relation to ST adds the need to balance the various organizational objectives (economic and non-economic) in order to meet the needs of all stakeholders, both present and future, particularly with regard to CS. Although there are very many CS definitions, it is usually operationalized through the Triple Bottom Line (TBL), a concept developed by Elkington (1997), including three primary business perspectives: social, environmental, and financial. The direction of development of the CSR, ST and CS concepts has been mainly toward extending the spectrum of business stakeholders. The theory of the Green Economy introduced two new elements. Firstly, operationally, it emphasizes an environmental aspect which, in itself, is nowadays an area of extensive scientific discussion. Conversely, it shows that the valuation of the stakeholders has begun.

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The development of the discussed concepts, thus, shows how many factors must be taken into account in the conduct of SB. Focusing on all of these aspects shows that to run a business effectively and efficiently, with respect to SB principles, great managerial competencies, and knowledge are required. On the one hand, SB is a response to the important problems of people involved in business activities in separate roles and different business situations. On the other hand, it is a new business challenge that needs to be met. There are many obstacles along the way to responding to this challenge from a critical socio-economic perspective of which one of the largest is the lack of appropriate methods and tools to support the harmonious development of the business, achieving both economic and ecological and social goals (cf. Larbi-Siaw et al. 2022).

CT as the Possible Answer to SB Requirements All CTs have two main features: memory architecture and learning mechanisms. The memory architecture stores knowledge about the world’s goals and current activities of cognitive technology. Learning is a process of creating new knowledge and the manner of its use. Based on these features, three main groups of CTs were indicated (Duch et al. 2008): • symbolic technologies; • emergent technologies; and • hybrid technologies. Symbolic technologies use declarative, symbolic knowledge representation in memory. The learning mechanism is based on processing symbolic knowledge (Hernes 2019). Symbolic technologies include: 1. State, Operator And Result (SOAR) uses rule-based systems as knowledgebased systems. The learning mechanism is based on an analytical approach of generating new rules and macro-operations using repetitive combinations of previous simple operations (the idea of chunking) (Laird 2008). 2. Executive Process Interactive Control (EPIC) models numerous aspects of human-machine interactions (Mayilvaganan and Kalpanadevi 2015). Several interconnected processors are used for realistic information processing received from sensors and for activating effectors. 3. The Semantic Network Processing System (SNePS) uses knowledge representation in order to reason and act not only on logical approaches but also on semantic frameworks and networks (Shapiro et al. 2019). The knowledge and beliefs of SNePS agents take the form of assertions about various objects, attributes, and relationships. 4. Integrated Cognitive-Neuroscience Architectures for Understanding Sensemaking (ICARUS) (O’Reilly et al. 2016) uses reactive skills defined as a sequence of actions in the context of specific objectives, as knowledge representation. ICARUS includes perception, planning, and executive subsystems.

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Emergent technologies use numerical knowledge representation in memory. The learning mechanism is based on processing numerical knowledge (Hernes 2019). Emergent technologies include: 1. Neurally Organized Mobile Adaptive Device (NOMAD) uses emergent rules as a knowledge representation for real-time control and pattern recognition. It uses various types of sensors to determine the position of the head and the direction of movement (Mukawa and Lim 2013). 2. Cortronics is inspired by the horn-cortical loop in the brain (Hecht-Nielsen 2007). Modular attractor networks called lexicons are used as a memory representation. The confabulation mechanism of the competitive activation of symbols contained in lexicons is used for processing words, states, and movements. 3. In Brain-Emulating Cognition and Control Architecture (BECCA), knowledge is represented as the connection between features and combinations of qualities. The BECCA consists of the following iterative modules: the creator of the features and the learning module (Rohrer 2012). Hybrid technologies integrate symbolic and emergent approaches in multiple ways (Hernes 2019). Hybrid architectures include: 1. The Connectionist Learning Adaptive Rule Induction Online (CLARION) (Martin and Sujatha 2016) consists of two types of memory: explicit and implicit. The motivational system creates goals for perception and control analysis. 2. DUAL (Kokinov 2019) is based on Marvin Minsky’s “Mind Society” (1986). This technology consists of uniform mental memory representations, and information processing is performed by interoperable microagents. 3. The Novamente AI Engine is based on probabilistic term logic and the Bayesian optimization algorithm. The tree structures are used for the representation of actions, perceptions, and internal states (Goertzel et al. 2010). 4. Cognitive Agents Architecture (Cougaar) is a multi-agent system developed by the ALPINE consortium for DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). It allows for developing interactive cognitive agents (Pech 2013). 5. The Learning Intelligent Distribution Agent (LIDA) is based on creating “conscious” software agents based on the Baars global workspace theory (Franklin et al. 2018). LIDA contains many memory modules that store knowledge represented in various forms. LIDA uses several different learning mechanisms.

Description of Literature Review Study In the first stage of the research, a systematic literature review based on queries and bibliometric analysis with the VOSviewer was made. The Scopus database was the subject of the initial systematic literature review. The following connected queries were constructed and applied: 1. (“Cognitive agents”) (CA) – 866 results.

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2. (“Cognitive architectures”) AND [LIMIT-TO (SUBJAREA, “comp”)] – 1,782 results. 3. (“Cognitive architectures”) (CAr) – 2,365 results. 4. (“Cognitive technologies”) (CT) – 149 results. 5. (“Supporting business processes”) (SBP) – 2 results. 6. (“Sustainable processes”) (SP) – 1,055 results. 7. (“Sustainable business”) (SB) – 340 results. Note that the keyword “cognitive architectures” has been restricted to the area of computing. This operation has been applied because the version of VOSviewer used generates maps for no more than 2,000 results. In order to be able to import data into an Excel file, the results had to be limited to the IT area, which has the most publications on this subject. The results of all seven queries were exported in CSV to Excel. The operations in the VOSviewer program were performed on this data to obtain a graphical co-occurrence analysis, a complete counting method, and a unit of analysis of all keywords. The VOSviewer was used to create bibliometric maps representing the activities in the Scopus database. The following elements were explored at the beginning of creating bibliometric maps with the VOSviewer: article title, abstract, and keywords documents. The performed primary queries indicated the minimum number of occurrences of a keyword and the number of keywords to be selected. In the research performed in the VOSviewer, the minimum number of occurrences of a keyword was 15. The number of selected keywords was 485. In the second stage of the research, two keywords were chosen to indicate those articles that present the use of CT in supporting sustainability in business. The combination of “CT” and “SB”, as well as “CT” and “supporting business processes” gave no results, so the combination of “CT” and “processes” was used. It is assumed that all processes in a company pursuing economic, environmental, and social cooperation objectives can be linked to the SB issue directly or indirectly. The result list contained 160 articles. These were pre-reviewed for compliance with the research topic and analyzed in detail. The discussed processes were systematized according to the AQPC Process Classification Framework (APQC Process Classification Framework 2019). According to this, all business processes are divided into 13 categories in two broad areas: A. Operating processes: 1. Develop vision and strategy. 2. Develop and manage products and services. 3. Market and sell products and services. 4. Manage supply chain for physical products. 5. Deliver services. 6. Manage customer service. B. Management and support services: 7. Develop and manage human capital. 8. Manage information technology (IT).

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The State of Research on Cognitive Technologies for Sustainable... 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

Manage financial resources. Acquire, construct, and manage assets. Manage enterprise risk, compliance, remediation, and resiliency. Manage external relationships. Develop and manage business capabilities.

Due to the complexity of organizational processes, this APQC universal crossindustry classification of processes was used in this research in order to systemize and group the results.

The Analysis of the State of the Research on CT for SB Bibliometric Analysis of Selected Keywords Table 1 presents the results of the bibliometric analysis. The year of the first publication with each selected keyword and the number of publications on a given topic in that year, given in parentheses, is indicated in the second column. The following columns present randomly chosen years between 1995 and 2021 to show the trends in the number of published articles. The authors wanted to investigate whether the number of publications had an upward or downward character, whether the concepts had evolved and whether the subject was not taken up. Table 1. Trends in keywords over the last 16 years Keyword

First 1995 2000 2002 2007 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2021 Total reference

CA

1991 (1)

6

2

18

31

54

46

CAr

1982 (1)

7

3

10

87

151

153 134

139 214

132 3,678

CT

1990 (1)

0

0

0

0

1

2

6

5

9

18

556

SBP

1995 (1)

1

1

2

2

9

12

14

10

7

11

177

SP

1991 (1)

1

1

1

9

46

46

37

81

99

154 2,845

SB

1996 (1)

–

1

1

14

46

59

62

72

127

209 3,719

35

49

61

35

1,597

Source: Authors’ research

As can be seen in Table 1, the term “cognitive architectures” appeared in the literature first among the studied keywords and “supporting business processes” last. The use of CT has been studied since the 1990s. The number of publications with keywords related to that area has been steadily increasing. Over the last four years, the number of publications for “cognitive agents” and “cognitive architectures” has been slightly decreasing. This may be because these words have also been understood more broadly, as is the case with the increasing importance of “CT.” There is no literature that connects all the keywords. The most significant number of articles appears under the category “cognitive architectures” in the area of CT and under “SB” in the area of organization and process support.

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Theoretical Issues on Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability

Many authors emphasize that the impact of CT on organizations will grow substantially over the next five years. Leaders of organizations in all sectors need to understand how and where to invest in applying CT. Hype-driven, ill-informed investments will lead to losses. In contrast, targeted investment can dramatically improve performance and create a competitive advantage (Schatsky et al. 2015). Based on the Scopus database queries and the described bibliometric review, the results may be presented in the form of the network diagram shown in Figure 2. The diagram (Figure 2) illustrates the relationships between different science areas, such as economics and finances, business, computer science, big data, human sciences, and Industry 4.0 in which articles with the examined keywords were identified. The map shows five colors that distinguish the given queries, i.e. keywords. Green indicates concepts most closely related to the keyword “cognitive architectures,” blue refers to the word “cognitive agents,” violet to “CT,” light blue refers to topics related to “sustainable process,” and red to “SB.” As seen in Figure 2, the closest relationship is between “cognitive architecture” and “cognitive agents,” and both words are closely related to “cognitive technology,” which is understandable. The connection with the keywords “SB” and “sustainable processes” is through the words “big data” and “Industry 4.0” in the case of both phrases and “simulation” in the case of “sustainable processes.” These words were not used as keywords in this research but the results show that the connection between CT and SB is not direct.

Figure 2. Network diagram of examined keywords (VOSviewer) (Source: Author’s research)

SB Processes Supported by CT This section answers RQ1 and RQ2. Table 2 presents the results of the analysis of articles selected in the second stage of research (sorted alphabetically). The processes supported by CT are indicated in the second column, and the APQC classification code is given. Due to the high complexity of this classification, only the main groups of processes were presented. The last column provides information on which CT approach was used to support the process.

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Table 2. Business processes supported by CT Source

Processes Supported

APQC Classification

CT Approach

Alexeenko et al. 2019

Calculating transformational costs in the process of activating resources. Investment, construction project management, and the resources involved in the construction process.

4.0 Manage supply chain for physical products

Theoretical/ mathematical modeling of cognitive technology

Boyarchuk 2021

Development of entrepreneurship in recreation regionally

2.0 Develop and manage products and services

Bu et al. 2020

Perform service 2.0 Develop and innovations for smart and manage products and connected products services

Hybrid intelligence decision-making strategy and overall architecture for service innovation

Bytniewski et al. 2020a

Identifying the features in the newly emerging ERP 4.0 system

4.0 Manage supply chain for physical products 8.0 Manage IT

The LIDA

Bytniewski et al. 2020b

Intelligent knowledge processing by the management control system

8.0 Manage IT 13.0 Develop and manage business capabilities

The LIDA

Clowes 2019

The effects the Internet has on human agency

7.0 Develop and manage human capital

Material Engagement Theory

Dugarova et al. 2020

Need for the introduction 2.0 Develop and of info-CT in native manage products and language-related services education

Bilingual informational and analytic system for finding out knowledge reflected in national language associative word meaning

Elia and Margherita 2022

Adoption of cognitive ideas in business strategies and operations; provide managers and business leaders with insights useful to support their organizations

1.0 Develop vision and strategy

Approach based on interactions among humans and machines and between the organization and its environment

Heersmink 2017

Decision-making processes

13.0 Develop and manage business capabilities

9.0 Manage financial resources

13.0 Develop and manage business capabilities

Sensitivity-based analysis

Distributed cognitive and moral theory (Contd.)

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Theoretical Issues on Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability Table 2. (Contd.)

Source

Processes Supported

Hernes et al. 2018

Budgeting process

APQC Classification

CT Approach

Ienca 2019

Democratization of CT to universalize and evenly distribute the potential benefits of cognitive technology and mitigate the risk

8.0 Manage IT

Kaur 2017

Decoding project to production

2.0 Develop and manage products and services

Cognitive dimensions of a coded script, called “talim”

Kokina and Davenport 2017

Accounting and auditing

9.0 Manage financial resources

IBM’s Watson

Kovalev et al. 2017

Sustainable development process, including investment-construction complex and ecohousing construction

2.0 Develop and manage products and services

The structure of the cognitive basis of the “green” building

Kudyba et al. 2020

Understand the integration of worker/ team attributes with collaboration modes, information resources, and augmented technologies that yield effective collective intelligence for decisionmaking

7.0 Develop and manage human capital

Theoretical basis for cognitive technology

Kwilinski and Kuzior 2020

Identification of 13.0 Develop and “bottlenecks” in the manage business functionality of business capabilities activity and improvement of procedures of decision-making

Kwilinski et al. 2019

Ensure the security of sustainable society development

The LIDA

13.0 Develop and manage business capabilities

11.0 Manage enterprise risk, compliance, remediation, and resiliency

Theoretical basis for cognitive technology

The control system of an industrial enterprise with an artificial feedback component based on the perceptron model Functional models for forecasting the safe development of society

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The State of Research on Cognitive Technologies for Sustainable... Lenay 2019

Technological innovation 2.0 Develop and and innovation in human manage products and science services

Sensory substitution model

Malygin et al. 2018

Using intelligent transport systems (ITS) in urban conditions, enable secure road traffic, and the reduction of the number of road traffic accidents and death rate on roads

2.0 Develop and manage products and services

Defining the cognitive cycle of the transport security system

Mele et al. 2021

Value co-creation

13.0 Develop and manage business capabilities

Integrative framework, based on the servicedominant logic and nudge theory, conceptualizing smart nudging

Mingaleva and Vukovic 2020

Training of research engineers for new industries

7.0 Develop and manage human capital

A cognitive and metacognitive model of the process

Naresh et al. 2020

Communication platform 6.0 Manage customer among stakeholders service

Cognitive-based chatbot

Park and Tran 2017

Manufacturing process support

10.0 Acquire, construct, and manage assets 8.0 Manage IT

Paradigm of a cognitive agent

Petrova et al. 2018

Improve the structure of providers of educational services

7.0 Develop and manage human capital

Computer vision, speech recognition, machine learning, natural language processing

Razumova et al. 2018

Innovations in modern 2.0 Develop and teaching, techniques, manage products and technologies, and services methods for improving the quality of the didactic interaction of subjects in the educational process

Slominski and Authoring, developing, Muthusamy monitoring, and 2018 analyzing business processes

13.0 Develop and manage business capabilities

Metacognitive reflexive technologies synthesized with information and communication technologies Blockchain

(Contd.)

146

Theoretical Issues on Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability Table 2. (Contd.)

Source Stachowicz and NowickaSkowron 2019

Processes Supported Introduction of innovative processes, in particular, for the implementation of modern information and CT

APQC Classification 8.0 Manage IT

Wang et al. 2017

Providing higher quality and more complex services

2.0 Develop and manage products and services

Wolfengagen et al. 2022

Information process for computing

8.0 Manage IT

Yorks et al. 2020

The workplace during the fourth industrial revolution

7.0 Develop and manage human capital

Yunchyk et al. Educational process 2021 formation of IT specialists

7.0 Develop and manage human capital

CT Approach Lists of threats generated by technologies building the concepts of “Industry 4.0” were formulated. The original Smart Organization concept was also developed, which is an enterprise management model of the processes for the implementation of modern information and CT An integrated cognitive computing framework for supporting incremental knowledge extraction and ontology construction An applied computational system, with computational thinking in the broad sense, can provide a useful mode of thinking so that we can separate computing into explicit and implicit layers Framework for understanding the workplace and human-machine collaboration in Industry 4.0 Cognitive modeling approach

The State of Research on Cognitive Technologies for Sustainable... Zatsarinnyy and Shabanov 2019

Processes supporting the modeling of objects in the technogenic, natural, and anthropogenic environment

2.0 Develop and manage products and services

147

Shared digital platforms possess properties of the innovative control of types of activity in organizational systems using CT in an integral informationally controlling medium

Source: Authors’ research

The most frequently occurring groups of supported processes are: 2.0 Develop and Manage Products and Services, 7.0 Develop and Manage Human Capital, 8.0 Manage IT, and 13.0 Develop and Manage Business Capabilities. Taking into consideration CT, the theoretical basis of CT is presented more often (TRL levels 1–3). Little use is made of CA which is at least on the sixth level of TRL (technology demonstrated in a relevant environment). A prototype of the CT, however, should be produced and demonstrated in a simulated environment to be used in supporting business processes. In this case, The LIDA architecture is used most frequently. Blockchain technology’s designation as a cognitive technology is also debatable. Most research related to using CT in supporting SB processes is performed on a basic level. Not a lot of research is applied (for instance, Bytniewski et al. 2020a; Bytniewski et al. 2020b; Dugarova et al. 2020; Hernes et al. 2018; Naresh et al. 2020).

Challenges and Research Gaps This section answers RQ3 and RQ4. The studies presented in this chapter draw on a research method using a process approach based on the APQC model. This approach has standardized how the results of the secondary studies presented in the analyzed articles were compared, as well as how the process areas of the SB assisted by the CT were identified. In general, the authors of this chapter recognize CT as supportive in addressing challenges that originate in SB requirements in such areas as: • reducing business processes that are incompatible with the SB concept; • adapting business processes to new conditions and terms of the SB concept; • creating and developing new business models meeting the requirements of SB standards. CT can perform many functions to support the abovementioned actions, such as: 1. Monitoring the company’s environment with reference to SB phenomena (delivering information from various sources, with different methods). 2. Supporting the decision-making process (creating possible variants of the decisions), which influences social, economic, or environmental performance.

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Theoretical Issues on Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability

It should be emphasized that, nowadays, data-driven approaches are most often used to support SB processes. These are mainly machine-learning methods. Many authors, however, point out that a knowledge-driven approach (Hemati et al. 2009) is now required. This will allow supporting the implementation of business processes more efficiently. Although efforts are being made to extend machine-learning methods to explainable artificial intelligence methods, they are still based on a datadriven approach. Moreover, the authors’ experience cooperating with enterprises on R&D shows that enterprise executives do not always understand the machinelearning models’ technical and methodological explainability. On the contrary, hybrid CTs are already modeled at their core to process knowledge, not just data. They allow for the processing of different knowledge representation approaches, such as knowledge graphs or ontologies. Hence, their use will enable an increase in the level of application of knowledge-driven approaches in supporting SB processes. Based on the research results, the following main research gaps have been identified: 1. Analyze the feasibility of using cognitive architectures at least at the sixth level of TRL. The most functionally developed architectures are hybrid. The advantage of these architectures is their emergent-symbolic nature, making it possible to process both structured (numerical and symbolic) and unstructured knowledge (written in natural language) (Hernes 2019). 2. Develop methods of application of hybrid CT for supporting SB processes. 3. Develop methods for the application of CT to existing management information systems to enhance the knowledge-processing capabilities of these systems.

Limitations of the Study The study presented in this chapter has some limitations. The first is that only the Scopus database was explored during the systematic literature review. There is the possibility that there are articles in other databases that would show more uses of CT in SB support. Future research should be extended to other accessible databases. Another limitation of the presented study was the use of specific keywords at the first stage of the bibliometric analysis. The quality of the literature review relies on the keywords used. As such, the results obtained were the consequence of those keywords. In the second stage, one of the main keywords had to be generalized because, otherwise, the search gave no results. It is worth considering whether the keywords were chosen properly. It might be the case that slight changes to the keywords would give better results. Certainly, the perfect functioning of CT cannot be guaranteed, as they still have many technical and functional limitations. However, the implementation of CT in management information systems to support the implementation of SB processes will enable the continuous development and improvement of these technologies.

Conclusions CT is used in various fields, dealing with both technical and social problems. The chapter presented the use of CT in supporting SB processes. The main findings of the conducted research are:

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• So far, there have been no research projects on the use of cognitive architectures in supporting sustainable processes. The development of IT has consequently led companies toward a more efficient implementation of business processes. At present, however, the integration of business processes or the decision support provided by these technologies is insufficient because it is based mainly on a data-driven approach. A knowledge-driven approach should be developed. • It is becoming important to support automatically the activities carried out so far by human beings in the enterprise. CTs can be used in this regard because they have the functions of discovering relationships between objects and phenomena in the real world and the functions of learning from experience. • The use of CT to support SB processes can gain a competitive advantage for a company through more effective implementation of CSR, ST, CS, and Green Economics into business practice. Further research may include the development of cognitive technologies to support sustainable processes in each category of the APQC classification, a detailed examination of selected companies, and an assessment of their readiness to implement CTs.

Acknowledgment The project is financed by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in Poland under the program “Regional Initiative of Excellence” 2019–2022, project number 015/RID/2018/19, total funding amount of 10,721,040.00 PLN.

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Part 2 Empirical Approaches to Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability

CHAPTER

9

The Role of Robotic Process Automation in Sustainable Human Resource Management Andrzej Sobczak Collegium of Economic Analysis, Warsaw School of Economics, Niepodleglosci 162, 02-554 Warsaw, Poland 22 564 60 00; [email protected]

Introduction Digital transformation has been taking place in most industries over the past few years, and the COVID-19 pandemic and associated economic perturbations have only accelerated transformation efforts. Transformation is understood as a profound reshaping of how companies operate as a result of digital technologies, both in terms of their processes and their business models (Berman 2012). This leads to dramatic improvements in the performance of the organization. According to L. Day-Yang, C. Shou-Wei, and C. Tzu-Chuan (2011), digital transformation affects three areas of an organization’s functioning: • the organization’s customer experience (understanding customer needs, introducing multiple contact channels and self-service elements); • operational processes (the organization’s internal processes and working environment and performance monitoring mechanisms); • the organization’s operating model (what products and services the organization provides and to which markets it provides them). To date, there have already been a number of academic studies in which the issue of digital transformation has been explored from various perspectives such as technological, organizational, and human resource management. However, it is important to be aware that the continuous development of IT solutions that are an imminent part of this transformation is a source of new challenges—relevant from both the application and research perspectives. In particular, the spread of software robots should be mentioned here. According to S. Anagnoste, their large-scale application will contribute to changes in the employment structure. On the one hand, there will be a shift of employees to perform more advanced tasks, providing higher added value, while on the other hand, a significant part of the employees will have

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to be retrained (Anagnoste 2018a). M. Swan even points to the legitimacy of the term “automation economy,” which addresses the functioning of the economy in conditions where robotic technology supplements or replaces most of the need for human labor (Swam 2016). This use of software robots raises a number of emotions among employees, who evidently associate robotization with restructuring leading to job cuts (Eikebrokk and Olsen 2020). Nonetheless, it appears that considering a number of benefits (financial and non-financial) attributable to the robotization of processes, such as faster execution of processes, reduction of errors in these processes, and easier scalability of the processes performed, there is no turning back on it. However, it must be implemented in a way that it is compatible with the concept of a sustainable enterprise, in particular sustainable management of human resources (Nauwerck and Cajander 2019). Therefore, the goals of this chapter include: • (G1) Identification of links between RPA and sustainable human resource management; • (G2) Developing recommendations for managers responsible for implementing the RPA tools that will allow more effective implementation of the robotic process automation in the context of sustainable human resource management.

The Main Determinants of Robotic Process Automation in the Context of Sustainable Human Resource Management We hear the word “robot” used for the first time in Karel Čapek’s 1920s play “R.U.R.” According to Sarowski (2017), Čapek, a Czech playwright, derived the word from “robota,” a word of Slavic origin meaning effort or hard work. For the purposes of this chapter, the author uses “robot” and “robotization” in the sense of the prominence of metaphors in management science; something research has started to focus on in recent times. Metaphors that relate to natural world processes, taking the above idea into account, influence the specific understanding of reality via an alternative part of that natural world, and to “the development of science and its language” (Morgan 2006). The concept of Robotic Process Automation (RPA), interpreted in the literature in both circumscribed and broad terms, is expressly associated with the phrase “software robot.” Also, the author defines a software robot as a software program that executes a programmed algorithm. The purpose of the program, which often emulates human work methods, carries out components of or entire business processes (Asatiani and Penttinen 2016; Anagnoste 2018b). Directly linked to the term “software robot” is the concept of RPA. In the relevant literature, this term is understood in two different ways: narrower and broader. More narrowly, RPA is a category of software employed to build software robots that are used to automate processes (Aguirre and Rodriguez 2017). It is important to demonstrate how RPA solutions are positioned against one other, classic business processes automation methods such as workflow-type systems or BPMS

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(business process management system) tools (Shaw et al. 2007). It can be assumed that both RPA and the above classic solutions have corresponding goals i.e., increasing efficiency and minimizing the costs of business processes while ensuring the highest quality of delivered products of these processes (Kedziora et al. 2018). However, these objectives are pursued by entirely different means. The implementation of workflow or BPMS class solutions involves the reconstruction of processes and the introduction of changes to these processes after implementation often entails programming work (which requires time and appropriate IT competence). By contrast, RPA tools allow business processes to be automated without interfering with the software supporting those processes. Furthermore, their manufacturers aim to make them intuitive enough for business unit representatives to handle on their own (that is to be able to produce software robots on their own with no or minimal support from IT departments) (Willcocks and Lacity 2018). In a broader sense, RPA is defined as a construct encompassing the process, content, and outcome of organizational change. At its core, RPA involves its implementation of business process automation using software robots. However, according to the paper by Lacity et al. (2017), it is important to recognize that the implementation of software robots and RPA tools cannot be equated with an IT project. It is necessary to consider these activities in a broader context than just technological i.e., as the implementation of a series of organizational changes and the results of these changes. Depending on the approach adopted, the implementation of RPA in a company can have different characteristics and courses of action. For instance, it can result in the change of only one or a few subsystems, but it can also have an impact on the entire business model of the company; its improvement, extension, or in the extreme case, the development of a new business model (Kedziora et al. 2021). In particular, while examining the impact of the use of software robots on specific industries and looking for the areas of strongest impact of the robotization that takes place, the banking and insurance sector and the advanced business services sector—BPO and SSC—should be highlighted first (Fernandez and Aman 2018). In the BPO and SSC sectors, the statement is often called cannibalization of the traditional way of doing business (Hallikainen et al. 2018). Based on the literature study, the author identified three main approaches to viewing RPA implementation from an organizational change perspective (Sobczak 2021), which are as followed: Conservative positioning: RPA implementation is viewed as a short-term, smallscale undertaking that can be discontinued at any time without incurring significant financial losses, aiming to quickly and temporarily (at least in the declarative layer) solve identified point problems (usually related to inefficient or partly manual integration of the operation of individual IT systems) or reduce the costs of implementing one or several processes. Robotization of processes in this approach usually occurs ad hoc, taking the form of an ad hoc task (without wider planning). The result of the work is the implementation of a robotization tool and the construction of one to several software robots for the needs of a selected, single organizational unit of the company.

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Efficiency improving positioning: The implementation of RPA is considered a way to improve the operation of individual organizational units (departments or offices), usually not having direct contact with customers. Its predominant objective is to increase the efficiency of parts of the organization and improve the quality of work (usually by increasing the productivity of employees, relieving them of routine activities, and reducing overtime). Robotization of processes is usually the implementation of a project that involves deploying a robotization toolkit and building about ten or twenty software robots for one or two company departments. Strategic positioning: The implementation of RPA is seen as a tool for changing the components of a company’s business model, in particular the value proposition for its customers and/or changing the company’s management system. RPA work in this approach is conducted over an extended period (it is a long-term endeavor) usually in the form of initiatives coordinated with one another. One result of this approach is the implementation of a process robotization platform, allowing work in this area to be scaled across the company. The number of robots deployed in a company usually exceeds 100. A comparison of the different approaches to RPA positioning is shown in Table 1. Table 1. Description of positioning RPA from the perspective of enterprise Conservative Positioning

Efficiency Improving Strategic Positioning Positioning

Goal of robotic process automation

Solving a local business problem or a technical problem

Increasing the efficiency of the operations of a selected part of the organization and improving the quality of the processes

Changing the company’s business model or management system, with the aim of delivering value to customers

Scope of the change

Local

Selected units of the organization

As total as possible

Number of robots deployed

Small

Medium

Large

Approach to the changes related to robotic process automation

Ad hoc

Planned

Planned

Expenditure required

Low

Medium

Large

Magnitude of benefits

Small

Small or medium

Large

Potential negative consequences

Lack of standards, security problems

Problems with scaling Increased the robotic process formalities during automation RPA

Source: Sobczak 2021

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The above considerations are relevant from the perspective of the concept of sustainable human resource management. The research area related to sustainable enterprise management has been developing very rapidly over the last several years (Aust et al. 2020). According to W. M. Grudzewski and others, a sustainable enterprise is an enterprise capable of, inter alia, continuous development, adaptation, learning, revitalization, and reorientation (Grudzewski et al. 2010). Sustainable human resource management plays a special role in the functioning of this type of organization. Sometimes the terms sustainable personnel management (Pabian 2011) or human sustainability (Pfeffer 2010) are used. According to I. Ehnert, sustainable human resource management means undertaking such practices that enable the accomplishment of the goals of the organization in the long term and, at the same time, take good care of the employees (Ehnert 2009). On the other hand, according to R. Zaugg, A. Blum, and N. Thom (Zaugg et al. 2001), sustainable workforce management also includes work-life balance, ability and willingness to work (employability), extending the scope of employees’ autonomy, and taking advantage of their competences. As emphasized by W. M. Grudzewski, the distinctive features of sustainability in relation to human resources management include the inclusion of economic, environmental, and social aspects in the company business (Grudzewski et al. 2010). At the same time, as A. Pocztowski points out, the idea of sustainability in relation to human resources emphasizes the need to search for and implement sustainable solutions of an innovative nature, taking into account these aspects (Pocztowski 2016). According to the author of this chapter, the robotization of business processes is in sync with this perspective. The economic dimension of sustainable human resource management is expressed in efforts to achieve high performance at the level of individual employees, teams, and the organization as a whole, along with establishing links between human resource management and organizational performance (Poškiene 2014). The social aspect of sustainable human resource management is expressed in the creation of a working environment in which employees can pursue their professional goals in line with the company’s strategy and operating model. According to A. Pocztowski, such activities include, by way of illustration, identifying the needs of employees, creating safe working conditions, shaping harmonious interpersonal relations, developing programs facilitating the reconciliation of work and personal life, and teaching employees how to take care of their health and regenerate their psychophysical potential (Pocztowski 2016). The ecological aspect of sustainable human resource management becomes apparent in the attempt to incorporate environmental management issues into the work of employees (Kramar 2022). The measures aim to shape the environmental sensitivity of the employees, to develop a pro-environmental working environment and ecologically responsible attitudes among employees, which they then transfer to the private sphere. Actions taken in this area include: building employee commitment to environmental issues, building green leadership, shaping an organizational culture geared toward pro-environmental attitudes, encouraging the development of ‘green’ competencies and offering environmental training for employees and managers, incorporating environmental criteria into periodic appraisal, and promoting

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environmentally friendly behavior in the performance of professional tasks (for instance by reducing paper consumption in the office in favor of a digital workflow). Another aspect of sustainable human resource management was highlighted by G. Spreitzer, C. Porath, and C. Gibson. They claim that it is important for employees to be active and learn, which translates into their engagement and a reduced sense of burnout, resulting in improved health and work performance (Spreitzer et al. 2012).

Description of Enterprises Study In order to meet the research objectives defined at the beginning of the chapter, the author planned and conducted semi-structured expert interviews between June to September, 2022. Semi-structured interviews have wide application in obtaining a range of data from individual experts, but can also, where appropriate, be used with groups. One of the most useful tools for interviewers is the semi-structured interview guide. A guide will enable the interviewer to make the most efficient use of interview time (Jamshed 2014). A set of core questions makes up the backbone of the guide. Under each of the core questions is a range of related questions (sub-questions). Pilot testing is used to revise both the core questions and sub-questions. All the questions and topics the interviewer needs to cover during the interview are incorporated in the guide in a simple, stratified form. This aids the interviewer in maintaining a structure to the interview, keeping the interview on track as well as the interviewer focused, and exploring the expert’s knowledge and points of view more effectively. Another practical tool often used in semi-structured interviews is to record the interviews; and from this, a transcript can be created. This relieves the interviewer of noting every aspect of the interview and again allows them to focus on their questions and make effective use of their verbal communication. This procedure is also a way of acquiring the greatest amount of data (Jamshed 2014). The author carried out semi-structured interviews with experts to achieve the research goals outlined previously. There were several reasons for using semistructured interviews in the research. The cultural and organizational, especially process, aspects of RPA, and not only its technological aspects, are vital. There are also many components and variables involved in the complex process of implementing RPAs, and there can be multiple outcomes. This means gathering data in real environments—that is, via interviews—rather than in tests carried out in laboratories. The research conducted by the author consisted of two phases: a pilot study and a proper study. A pilot study was used to validate the interview questionnaire. This verification consisted in assessing the degree of understanding of the questions contained in the questionnaire and their completeness by three respondents. As a result of the pilot study, modifications were made to the questionnaire (two questions were made relevant and in another two the wording was clarified and definitions were added). Due to quite significant changes in the questionnaire, the research material collected during the pilot was not used in the actual study. The final list of five substantive questions is presented below. The author is aware that to address all aspects of the research issue under consideration, it would be optimal if the number

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of questions was higher. However, there was a risk raised by potential respondents that they might not find the time to engage in research. Furthermore, apart from substantive questions, questions of a statistical nature were developed; questions were asked about the size of the company, industry, ownership structure, and about the respondent’s experience in implementing RPA. The success of structured expert interviews is vitally contingent on the selection of respondents. In selecting experts for the planned interviews, the author made his choice bearing in mind the following principles: • They had to be representatives of the managerial staff responsible for the implementation of RPA, with at least 2 years of direct experience in this field; • There must have been indications of the significant knowledge of these people on the implementation of RPA (for instance, their participation in specialist conferences and publications in trade journals); • They had to be people working in organizations that were implementing RPA for their own needs, not as consultants or tool vendors, to robotize business processes (most of the issues discussed in the interviews were related to the strategic determinants of robotization and the resilience of the organization, and these issues needed to be considered from the internal organizational perspective); companies in which respondents work must position RPA in the enterprise in a streamlining or strategic approach. The author used the Robonomika.pl website as a way of selecting the 15 candidates to take part in the study. The website hosts open lists of entities that had stated that they had robotized their business processes. Fourteen of these experts (profiles in Table 2) participated in the interviews and provided the author with their experiences of RPA. Of the 14 participants, 11 were employed in the Polish registered branches of international companies, while three belonged to other types of companies. Previous research with a sample size appropriate for the qualitative survey has suggested gaining experts and interviews until the data analysis and transcription reach saturation. The saturation has been reached at different sample sizes depending on the research aims and goals. It has been suggested that if the qualitative research has specific research questions and aims, little new information is generated after the interview. Therefore, semi-structured interviews will be conducted until data saturation is reached. In the research conducted by the author, a total of 14 interviews were conducted, so a lower threshold of saturation has been achieved (Vasileiou et al. 2018). The interviews were conducted via conference calls (using Zoom and MS Teams Communicator). All interviews were conducted in Polish. All interviews were held during June-September 2022 (Table 3). All the interviews recorded using Zoom/MS Teams were subsequently transcribed into text form. The interviews have been recorded with the consent of each of the interviewed subjects to preserve the collection of informative data. Therefore, this research is framed within the proposed ethical considerations: informed consent, avoiding the deception of research participants, respecting participants’ privacy, upholding the accuracy of data and interpretation, and respect for the individual.

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Table 2. Characteristics of the experts Sex

Industry

Position

Total Number of Years of Experience in RPA Area

Size of the Enterprise

E1

Male

Banking

Automation Manager

4

>5,000

E2

Male

SSC

RPA and Automation Director

4

1,001–5,000

E3

Male

Banking

RPA Director

3

>5,000

E4

Female

Insurance

RPA Leader

3

>5,000

E5

Female

Banking

RPA Director

5

>5,000

E6

Male

Telecommunication

RPA Manager

3

>5,000

E7

Male

Banking

RPA Leader

3

>5,000

E8

Male

Insurance

RPA Manager

3

1,001–5,000

E9

Female

SSC

Automation Manager

4

1,001–5,000

E10

Male

Insurance

RPA Manager

4

1,001–5,000

E11

Male

Telecommunication

RPA Manager

3

>5,000

E12

Male

Banking

RPA Director

3

>5,000

E13

Male

SSC

RPA Manager

3

>5,000

E14

Female

Other finance

RPA Manager

2

1,001–5,000

Note: The total number of years of experience in RPA and the position of an expert at the time of the research carried out. Source: own research.

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Expert ID

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Table 3. Description of the interviews Expert ID

Date

Tool

Interview Duration

E1

June 2022

MS Teams

70 min

E2

June 2022

Zoom

50 min

E3

July 2022

MS Teams

45 min

E4

July 2022

MS Teams

60 min

E5

July 2022

MS Teams

60 min

E6

July 2022

Zoom

60 min

E7

August 2022

Zoom

50 min

E8

August 2022

MS Teams

45 min

E9

September 2022

Zoom

50 min

E10

September 2022

Zoom

60 min

E11

September 2022

Zoom

60 min

E12

September 2022

Zoom

60 min

E13

September 2022

MS Teams

45 min

E14

September 2022

MS Teams

60 min

Source: Author’s own research.

Moreover, we state that, with respect to the confidentiality of the participants, any data that could identify them has been removed, thus preserving anonymity in each one of the interviews. In addition, each participant was informed of the purpose of the research and consented to participate. The next step was to code the interviews. The last step was the analysis of the obtained results.

Relationships Between RPA and Sustainable Human Resource Management from Experts’ Perspective A summary of the results of the interviews with experts is presented below, broken down into individual questions. Question 1. In which model is the robotization of business processes implemented in your organization—conservative, streamlining or strategic? It was important to standardize some of the concepts being discussed. For the participants, a software robot might be defined in different ways. For some, it may be a virtual machine, while for others it might be a fully robotized process or even a license. It was therefore agreed with the experts that the term “software robot” should mean a software program, developed with tools for this purpose or programming languages that executes a pre-programmed algorithm. The purpose of the program is to automatically carry out components of, or entire, business processes in applications that emulate human work. In the interviews, the experts revealed that RPA in their businesses was purposed in a simplifying and strategic way. Thus, their companies had carried out RPA implementations over at least 2 to 3 years. For instance, in four of the businesses,

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pilot RPA implementations had started more than 4 years previously. This information was in accordance with the research objectives. Under the previously stated definition, most of the experts’ companies had around 100 or more software robots, although some participants stated that 200 or more had been implemented. The robots were all used broadly, covering at least three areas within the business. The respondents gave example areas such as postsales service, debt collection, finance, and controlling risk. Also, it was revealed that further units within most of the businesses were investigating the potential use of RPAs. Question 2: What benefits have the application of RPA brought to respondents’ organizations? All respondents had a very similar perception of robotization in their organizations. In the first phase of RPA implementation (which lasted from 12 to 24 months, depending on the organization), RPA was perceived primarily as a tool to reduce full-time equivalent (FTE) costs (FTE savings were the main KPI). In the second phase (9–12 months), companies focused either on relieving their employees from monotonous work or on improving the quality of processes and products/services by using robots in their provision. In the strategic approach, the most mature one, robotization is seen as a tool to increase product innovation or even change the company’s business model (in some organizations there was even talk of designing processes for the use of robots). Question 3: How was the robotization of processes perceived by employees of companies? The respondents work in industries where digital transformation is not a new concept, but in fact, has been underway for several years. Respondents emphasized that the introduction of software robots is a perfect complement to large digital transformation projects. Perceptions of robotization varied by company size, ownership, and location. In very large companies (>5,000 employees), in companies with foreign capital, and in large urban centers, the robotization of processes did not raise very high concerns among lower-level employees. Often, robot deployment activities were preceded by communication and education campaigns and companies were granted external awards and prizes at competitions for the completion of robot deployments (which tended to make employees proud). The situation was different for smaller companies operating in cities where there are no strong academic centers and the branch of the company in question is a large employer. At the time, the robotization of processes was viewed as a potential risk of job loss or at least as a factor that required stepping out of one’s current comfort zone and having to learn a new set of responsibilities. Three respondents even pointed out instances in which a robot’s malfunction or erroneous actions were, especially at the onset of robotization, even perceived by employees with enthusiasm—“it is wrong too,” “it is not that good,” “it is not that smart.” Question 4: How has the robotization of processes affected the sustainable management of human resources in economic, social and environmental terms?

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Virtually all respondents emphasized the link between process robotization and the economic dimension of sustainability, in particular the labor cost savings that robots have delivered. One respondent pointed out, for instance, that before implementing RPA, customer service employees had manually checked each order and confirmed that all material codes matched. It had usually taken them up to 30 minutes to check one order. The process was time-consuming, and this was handled by six people. Each of them had to log into the system, go through several screens to download the report, then run filters to see which codes were incorrect, and finally correct the errors. Every day, 30 to 60 codes needed to be corrected; you had to find all the incorrect codes in each order and correct them manually. Once the robot was deployed, the process has been operated by one person. He starts the robot and monitors its operation. What is worth noting is that the term “labor cost reduction” has never meant layoffs. Apart from individual cases, employees were shifted to tasks of a different nature (demanding more experience or higher level of expert knowledge or even empathy in customer service). In contrast, most respondents did not need to recruit new personnel thanks to the use of software robots. In practice, this meant that as part of the currently implemented processes, additional tasks had to be introduced (such as those related to compliance services), which until now required acquiring new employees from the labor market. This was now unnecessary, as the execution of this work was being taken over by the robots. The companies observed that manually, or even partly automating tasks that had to be carried out multiple times within a set period of time, was challenging to achieve, especially as they required particular skill sets and the allocation of staff. The experts agreed that this is another important advantage of RPA, and it is easy to scale. Implementing RPA in these cases is only a matter of extending the IT framework, which is usually in a virtual form; although, in addition, a license for robots may need to be obtained. An example of this process provided by the experts involved a telecommunications company. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this company’s call center customers increased dramatically. To support the busy call center staff, software robots that were already operating within the business were simply extended to cover the call center. Regarding the social sustainability dimension, respondents emphasized that robotization of business processes relieves employees of repetitive, even tedious, creativity-killing activities—the execution of these operations is shifted to robots. Moreover, according to respondents, the robotization of processes contributes to a reduction in overtime or the need to work on days off (this particularly concerned Saturdays and holidays). With wisely implemented robotization, only one person is needed, to oversee the robots at such times and respond to emergencies, without having to involve entire departments. The opportunity highlighted by some respondents for some of their employees to develop and retrain was another aspect of the social dimension of sustainability. Such actions translate into an increase in employee engagement and a reduced sense of burnout. Half of the respondents communicated an interest in the idea of citizen developers in their companies, that is people without formal IT training who were able to construct software robots. Indeed, the current RPA solutions are so intuitive to use that one can become a robot developer after a few weeks of training.

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It was most difficult for respondents to grasp the relationship between robotization and ecological aspects. Here, most respondents (seven people) pointed to the saving of paper by digitizing the execution of business processes. Moreover, one respondent here pointed to the example of a robot supporting the work of field debt collectors. The essence of his work was to mark the addresses of the company’s clients on the map of Poland along with the amount of debt (in several different categories). The robot optimized the route to the debtor for individual debt collectors. This has helped cut its CO2 emissions even by 12,500 g a month. Nonetheless, some respondents, especially from international companies, emphasized that in the coming years, one should that broader synergies will be sought between the robotization of business processes and ecology. On the one hand, this is in concert with the so-called Green IT trends. On the other hand, this may translate into real financial savings (this thread appeared in conversations that were conducted in September when some of the surveyed organizations became aware of problems with surging electricity costs). Question 5: What are the good practices for implementing robotization of processes, important from the perspective of sustainable human resources management? Virtually all respondents emphasized the role of proper communication during the implementation of RPA implementations in their organizations. Several respondents (5) used the phrases “fair communication” and “open communication.” Once requested to clarify this term, they emphasized that on the one hand, it is not necessary to raise the expectations of employees too much. But at the same time, mentioned that in the long run, robotization would change the model of work performed in the enterprise. According to respondents, communication should be addressed to both operational employees and managers. In their case, a distinction should be made between mid-level managers (such as team leaders) and area directors and board members. Each of these groups should receive an adapted set of messages but with slightly different accents. According to respondents, as regards operational employees, it is worth focusing on emphasizing benefits at the workplace level (by way of illustration moving away from performing monotonous activities by employees, “we robotize boredom” one of the respondents referred directly to one of the RPA service providers); for managers, it is worth emphasizing the role of relationships with the company’s strategic goals (such as client-centricity or cost efficiency). Education was the other important aspect. Virtually all respondents emphasized its importance. It is about both the implementation of process thinking (essential from the point of view of implementing robotization) and subsequent cooperation with robots (the ability to monitor their work and deal with emergencies that may arise; for instance handling process exceptions). Moreover, according to four respondents (out of 14), a properly conducted educational campaign allows one to balance expectations regarding robotization with the actual capabilities of software robots. As another aspect, most respondents (8 out of 14) raised the selection of appropriate KPIs (efficiency measures) for the implementation of robotization. In their opinion, such factors as, for instance, the number of robots implemented in

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a specific unit of time, or generated savings (measured by the number of reduced jobs) are wrong measures. It is much better to use a set of sustainable indicators (concerning, for instance, aspects related to employee experience and customer experience). Some respondents pointed out during the interviews that the research conducted by the author inspired them to look at the idea of sustainable human resource management in the context of the robotization of processes. Table 4. Relations between individual aspects of the concept of sustainable human resources management and robotization of business processes Aspects of the concept of sustainable Relation of a relevant aspect with the human resource management robotization of business processes Continuous development of the company’s The implementation of RPA has a positive impact on the growth of the company’s capabilities in the long term capabilities, in particular with the strategic positioning of robotization of business processes Development of employees’ competencies in The implementation of RPA has a positive impact on the development of employees’ the long term competencies, both in the process and technological areas Work-life balance, so that employees have time to rest, family and social relationships, which will affect their health and vitality, and will also eliminate the feeling of burnout

Robotization of business processes contributes to a more sustainable work model, without overtime, the need to work on weekends or holidays (except in emergencies)

Protection of employees’ health

The interviews did not identify the relationship between this aspect of the concept of sustainable human resources management and the robotization of business processes

Fostering a friendly atmosphere at work

Robotization of business processes allows one to focus on performing more creative tasks, which in the long run promotes innovation in the organization

Employee involvement to minimize the Robotization of business processes allows adverse impact of the company business on one to develop solutions that can support a the environment pro-ecological work model (in particular, a departure from the paper flow of documents) Equal treatment of women and men

Three respondents emphasized that the area of process robotization is the area in which most women work (as against other ITrelated areas in the organization)

Source: Own research based on Zaleśna, Wyrzykowska (2017).

Summing up the respondents’ answers presented above, in the surveyed companies positioning RPA in terms of improvement or strategy one can observe the evident relationship between this approach and sustainable human resources

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management. However, this relationship is not evenly distributed in each of the dimensions of sustainable management: the strongest relationship is visible in the economic dimension, and the weakest is the ecological one. An in-depth analysis of this relationship, which uses a list of aspects of the concept of sustainable human resources management proposed by A. Zaleśna and B. Wyrzykowska (Zaleśna and Wyrzykowska 2017), is presented in Table 4.

Conclusions The introduction of large-scale robotization of business processes must be viewed as a special kind of change that gives rise to a hybrid work environment. Such a work environment is understood as a coherent set of IT tools (business applications and software robots), processes and procedures, and people with specific competencies and skills, implementing specific business processes and processing specific data. In practice, robots will not crowd out people, but people and machines (understood here as a special type of software) will become one environment. This work environment is not yet common among companies operating in Poland. Meanwhile, research conducted by analytical companies (for instance, Gartner, HfS Research) at global companies implies that environments grouping 500–1,000 robots are already emerging. Working in such an environment poses a number of challenges. They vary depending on the role played by humans and robots. Until now, managers have focused on managing only people, often without going into the technological aspects. This will have to change when, for instance, the manager will manage a team composed of 30% of people and 70% of bots (and will be responsible for such a team). It is worth giving an example of a company that is one of the leaders of the Polish e-commerce market in which the managers of individual business departments have to be able to develop software robots (without which they may not promote in the company structures). On the other hand, employees’ activities will be constantly monitored, analyzed, and evaluated (such a situation can already be observed, for example, in Amazon distribution centers). The ethical aspects of decision-making by (intelligent) software robots will also gain pronounced significance. After all, it is important to make managers aware of how profound changes will stem from the spread of classic and intelligent robotization of business processes (Willcocks et al. 2020). Those of them who today neglect to implement RPA solutions in their companies may expect a significant deterioration of the market position of their companies in the coming years (Kedziora and Penttinen 2020). Implementation of large-scale robotization as well as taking into account the aspect of sustainable human resources management, one can point to aspects including conducting honest communication, implementing a wide educational action, and defining sustainable measures related to the robotization of processes. It should be noted that the author is aware of the limitations of the research procedure which was conducted. Some of these limitations derive from the complexity and manifold nature of the robotization of business processes. Other limitations attributable to the adopted research procedure include: • Limiting the scope of research to enterprises operating only in Poland; this limitation arose from possible implementation conditions; the author is aware

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that the research conducted in other countries may produce different results, hence it would be extremely valuable to conduct the research discussed in the paper not only with reference to enterprises from Poland but more broadly in European countries. • Limited pool and the method of its selection. The results obtained cannot be considered representative and cannot be generalized; they present the situation only in the group of enterprises under consideration. • Possibly ambiguous understanding of the questions asked during the interview. Regardless of the above limitations, the conducted research procedure allowed the adopted research objectives to be attained. At the same time, the author plans to expand the completed research with quantitative research in the future. The considerations undertaken in the paper focused on the “traditional” robotization of business processes, without the participation or with the minimum participation of solutions/algorithms, which can be described as “intelligent.” The coming years will change this landscape. RPA tools will use machine learning mechanisms on a large scale, which will allow the so-called intelligent robotization of business processes to be implemented (Agostinelli et al. 2019). At the same time, it should be pointed out that software robots built by using RPA tools are only part of the range of business robotization solutions. It is worth mentioning chatbots and voice bots that automate text and voice communication between customers (both external and internal) and individual departments of enterprises. Some enterprises (for instance in the telecommunications industry) already combine voice bots with RPA tools, which from the customer’s perspective means a fully automated process of enabling/disabling services provided by a relevant entity (Lacity and Willcocks 2018). From a scientific perspective, in the coming years, the issues of process robotization will be a buoyantly and rapidly developing area, not only in the context of technology but also in management. Indeed, in the context of the above considerations, the issues of sustainable business management, including human resources, will be one of the most important research topics. The author considers this chapter a contribution to commence a discussion in this area. However, this will require a number of further studies, both quantitative and qualitative.

Acknowledgments This research was funded by the Foundation Centre for Studies on Digital Government through the project “Advanced Aspects of Business Process Automation.”

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Pocztowski, A. 2016. Zrównoważone zarządzanie zasobami ludzkimi w teorii i praktyce. Zarządzanie i Finanse, 14: 303-314. Poškiene, E. 2014. Sustainability Perspective in the Human Resource Management and Organizational Performance Linkage. Uncertainty in a Flattening World: Challenges for IHRM. Cracow, Poland. Sarowski, Ł. 2017. Robot społeczny – Wprowadzenie do zagadnienia. Roczniki kulturoznawcze, VIII(1): 75-89. Shaw, R.D., P.C. Holland, P. Kawalek, B. Snowdon and B. Warboys. 2007. Elements of a business process management system: Theory and practice. Business Process Management Journal, 13: 91-107. Sobczak, A. 2022. Robotic process automation as a digital transformation tool for increasing organizational resilience in Polish enterprises. Sustainability, 14(3): 1333. Spreitzer, G., C.L. Porath and C.B. Gibson. 2012. Toward human sustainability: How to enable more thriving at work. Organizational Dynamics, 41(2): 155-162. Swam, M. 2016. Philosophy of social robotics: Abundance Economics. In: A. Agah, J.J Cabibihan, A. Howard, M. Salichs, H. He [eds.]. Social Robotics. ICSR 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 9979. Springer, Cham. Vasileiou, K., J. Barnett, S. Thorpe and T. Young. 2018. Characterising and justifying sample size sufficiency in interview-based studies: Systematic analysis of qualitative health research over a 15-year period. BMC Medical Research Methodology, 18: 1-8. Willcocks, L. and M. Lacity. 2016. Automation: Robots and the Future of Work. Stratfordupon-Avon, UK: Steve Brookes Publishing. Willcocks, L., J. Hindle and M. Lacity. 2020. Becoming Strategic with Robotic Process Automation. Stratford-upon-Avon, UK: Steve Brookes Publishing. Zaleśna, A. and B. Wyrzykowska. 2017. Zrównoważone zarządzanie zasobami ludzkimi w praktyce przedsiębiorstw w Polsce. Organizacja i Kierowanie, 1: 151-165. Zaugg, R., A. Blum and N. Thom. 2001. Sustainability in Human Resource Management. Evaluation Report. Survey in European Companies and Institutions. University of Berne, IOP-Press, Berne.

CHAPTER

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Sustainable E-commerce in the Perspective of SDGs and Online Marketplaces Dariusz Grabara University of Economics in Katowice, Poland [email protected]

Introduction The plan for achieving sustainable development for the entire planet’s prosperity is a challenge for the entire mankind. In its core form the first and foremost priority stays “eradicating poverty in all its form and dimensions” (Rosa et al. 2021). The United Nations (UN) has proposed 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to achieve this result. The main drivers are promoting sustainable development, expanding opportunities, and addressing related challenges (UN Secretary-General 2017). Setting goals was not a straightforward task. It started in 1992 during the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, where 178 countries adopted Agenda 21; an action for the development of new strategies to invest in the future to achieve overall sustainable development in the 21st century (McCammon 1992). Final goals were accepted on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development during the UN Sustainable Development Summit in 2015 (Chasek et al. 2016). It was stressed that to achieve at least one goal, the adoption of all of the goals has to be accomplished (Morton et al. 2019). Unfortunately, a new kind of threat emerged along the way. The COVID-19 pandemic threw the world into a state of turmoil. Preserving health was achieved by employing traffic bans. However, it was not an ideal solution since it harmed the economies. In that scope, some concerns were voiced that other SDGs would be delayed or even reevaluated (Mukarram 2020). Governments across the globe realized the potentially wide spectrum of negative pandemic effects and to counteract them, they employed many kinds of actions. Operations included relieving value-added tax, open market operations to cut down production costs, monetary policies, or distribution of special loans for affected branches (Liu et al. 2021). Fast issue of countermeasures was allowed by highly developed communication channels and the quick response of the economy. The key role players were enterprises that were applying changes

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among their employees. A synonym of that was remote working. The other effective implementations featured appropriate job workload, monitoring, support, and social support (Wang et al. 2021). Those acts cannot be provided without proper ICT infrastructure and knowledge. However, even traffic bans provided additional pressure for using ICTs. In that context, e-commerce started to play a significant role not only in goods distribution but also in business survival (Abed 2021). Even governments implemented regulations that helped e-commerce facilitation (Pratap et al. 2022). The regulations included encouraging cashless transactions, conducting purchases through a courier, providing remote medical advice, or remote handling of official business. Thus, it could be concluded that endangering the achievement of UN SDGs may be mitigated by appropriate ICT adoption. E-commerce marketplaces are the most recognizable forms of online commerce. They are a form of e-commerce company that supports buying and selling goods. ICT adoption must remain at a high level if the company should prosper in a highly competitive market. However, COVID-19 pressured marketplaces further into the adoption of ICTs due to their usage of cutting-edge, high-tech field operations involving big data, and machine learning capabilities as well as the highest grade of infrastructure like cloud computing. Staying in the face of the international community also put pressure to ensure the highest standard of service. Among other things, sustainable development remains one of their top priorities. While UN SDGs were signed up by its member states, there is no such recognized organization for marketplaces. Thus, these companies present various approaches to reaching sustainable goals. Numerous online marketplaces are taking advantage of another opportunity to achieve sustainable development. It is to sell and buy not only new but also preowned goods. This kind of activity also involves consumer-2-consumer (C2C) sales. Buying and selling of pre-owned goods are referred to as “re-commerce.” From a wider perspective, re-commerce is part of the circular economy. The circular economy “involves sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing materials and products as long as possible” (European Parliament 2022). The purpose of the chapter is to investigate if the e-commerce marketplaces referred also as e-commerce companies are implementing SDGs into their daily usage as well as to investigate the role of emerging ICT.

E-commerce Sustainability and ICT Adoption The relation of ICT adoption in the context of achieving sustainable goals is the main concern of numerous organizations. The most widely known is the international telecommunication union (ITU). ITU establishes a framework known as the “SDG Digital Investment Framework” (International Telecommunication Union 2019). ITU is a UN agency consisting of members of public and private sectors to work on global standards, regulatory environment, and best practices for ICT. ITU measures ICT development, however, in the aforementioned report, ITU emphasizes that “we have not seen software vendors appreciably adjusting their product designs to help meet the SDGs.” From this perspective, each activity translated to SDGs should

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be a welcome change and the e-commerce marketplace should not only be the key players in the adoption of new technologies but also pioneers and heavy adopters of sustainability standards. Adam et al. (2020) indicated that e-commerce is significantly influenced by ICT access. ICT access means, among other things, adequate internet bandwidth per user, households with internet access, and personal computers. To meet emerging customer demands, an e-commerce company must provide the proper infrastructure, which is crucial in its operations. These conclusions are in line with studies that have analyzed the relationship between online sales and infrastructure when it positively affects sales (Hagsten 2022). The positive impact is especially beneficial for larger companies. In this context selling goods on a wider scale with different ICT access should be prepared by marketplaces significantly earlier, and proper connections should be established. Connectivity also plays an important role in achieving SDGs. ITU in its 2022 report on global connectivity stressed this. Houlin Zhao, ITU Secretary-General, pointed out that “connectivity is not a panacea, but an important catalyst, an enabler for every single goal” (ITU 2022). In this perspective, companies focused on sustainability programs should be open to providing services to a large scale of visitors. For e-commerce marketplaces, this especially means access to their offerings. Measuring how a company provides access is not just a task of measuring the level of infrastructure. The infrastructure should be also tested if it is capable of conducting continuous access. Numerous studies have addressed the issue of ICT infrastructure and measured it by the number of visits. The study by Pierdicca, Paolanti, and Frontoni (Pierdicca et al. 2019) pointed out that the number of visitors is an indicator of the effectiveness of the system’s architecture. Gomabult, Allal-Chérif, and Décamps (Gombault et al. 2016) reported that even ICT adoption measured through attendance per year is one of the criteria for diversifying the cases. In conclusion, the number of visits to the website would be a good approximation of finding the correct representatives of sustainability adopters. It should be emphasized that achieving SDGs is not just a matter of selecting entities by the number of visits. UN with its strategy of “no one left behind” applies to the whole world. Thus, a wider scale means operating not only according to the scale of visits of potential customers but taking into account regions or cultural levels. Previous studies have pointed out differences in ICT infrastructure and access between countries and regions (Hanafizadeh et al. 2009). This implies that internationality as a key player cannot be omitted. The UN is comprised of 193 member states, thus continental approach should be a good solution for finding international representatives. The study by Kpolevie, Ewansiha, and Esara (Kpolovie et al. 2017) showed continental differences in indexes featuring ICT assets. Discussed in their work the Human Development Index (HDI), which uses ICT assets as one of the indicators, measures the social and economic dimensions of countries. This approach is in line with SDGs goals, where social and economic goals with the inclusion of health are preferred aims. The continental approach to ICT is also considered crucial in the analysis of ICT skills development, diffusion, and adoption (Ponelis and Holmner 2015). The results point out ICT unreliable billing and collection systems as the cause of negative impact on sustainability. As the result, the continental approach joined with the scale of operations is the robust base for analysis selection.

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Unfortunately, analyzing the achievement of SDGs goals with e-commerce companies as an industry branch is often omitted, thus the research gap has been found. To fill the research gap, the 1st hypothesis was formulated. Hypothesis 1 is representatives of e-commerce marketplaces are the adopters of UN SDGs. Another issue frequently omitted in the e-commerce analysis is the advancements of ICT in the context of sustainability. ICT in its basic form is referred to as a combination of computer hardware, computer software, and telecommunications equipment (Stiroh 2003). However, alongside the rise of sustainability awareness, the perspective on ICT started to change. Different kinds of approaches to ICT for sustainable development were proposed. Among others, the most known were environmental informatics (EI) (Avouris and Page 1996), computational sustainability (CompSust) (Gomes 2011), and Green ICT (also named Green IT). Proposed fields connected ICT with sustainability in different areas. In 2013, at a conference in Zurich, an interdisciplinary approach was presented called ICT for sustainability (ICT4S) (Hilty and Aebischer 2015). While ICT for sustainability statement is intelligible, it can be split into two: sustainability in ICT and sustainability by ICT. The first encompasses making ICT goods and services with sustainability directions as the base standard, while the latter proposes sustainable patterns of consumption and production through ICT. Both methods include critical perspective analysis to assess the impact of ICT on societies. As such, the approach is considering every aspect of ICT, including the development of new technologies. E-commerce companies are pioneers in adapting new technologies, especially in high-tech fields. That is why they frequently showcase used technologies as the main drivers of their operations. That also holds for achieving sustainability goals. Companies’ reliable source of information for achieving sustainable development is sustainability reports. In the fundamental form, sustainable development requires the reporting and communication of sustainability-relevant issues and activities (Herzig and Schaltegger 2006); then it is safe to assume that the relevant technologies, including high-tech, will be also presented in the sustainability reports. ICT taken into consideration was comprised of highly advanced technologies and widely used in e-commerce and involved cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), internet of things (IoT), supply chain management (SCM), and electronic payment systems (E-Payment). The direction for technologies provided was to embrace new approaches to ICT like Industry 4.0 and specificcommerce-specific solutions, like fintech. However, for e-commerce companies, the most interesting would be digitization. There are indications that digitization can lead to increased competition through e-commerce forming the “Amazon effect” (Charbonneau et al. 2017). Thus, one of the largest e-commerce sites (Amazon) paves new paths for ICT usage. Another approach is to conduct e-commerce in different regions with a different awareness of sustainability goals. In this perspective, basic ICT systems should be employed, which guarantee reliable process operations. Traditional technologies like E-Payment should be also presented as they especially benefit e-commerce users (Chou et al. 2004). Combining the source of the data, usage of high-tech, and e-commerce industry the research gap was found and, as the result, the 2nd hypothesis was formulated. Thus, hypothesis 2 is ICT adoption among sustainability-aware e-commerce marketplaces must include the usage of high-tech technologies.

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Analytical Procedure The study investigated key players in the online marketplaces industry and identified the use of ICTs in the context of UN SDGs. The research used a mixed approach with qualitative and quantitative approaches. The qualitative part was based on the literature review to establish connections between ICT and SDGs as well as the procedure for choosing e-commerce marketplace representatives. The quantitative part of this study analyzed data found in companies’ reports and provided insights into the context of ICT adoption in sustainable development.

Analysis of the Online Marketplaces Analysis of marketplaces was provided on the selected companies’ representatives. The selection procedure was based on two steps. According to the theoretical background, the most popular online marketplaces were selected at the initial step. As the study’s character was qualitative, the five most popular companies were selected arbitrarily. The selection was based on the number of online monthly visits. The data source was the website, Statista.com. Statista.com is a German company (Statista GmbH) that provides different kinds of statistical data (Statista.com 2022a). Statista databases are widely used for research in ICT and sustainability (Hugbo 2019; Dondoni 2022). In the case of a lack of data from Statista.com, Similarweb. com company was chosen as the data source. Similarweb.com is a company aimed at measuring online traffic data. Databases are based on Google Analytics, Wikipedia, census, and global partnerships (Similarweb.com 2022a). Similarweb.com data are used by e-commerce sites as well as in scientific research (Azim and Hasan 2018). The second step was to assess if the selected companies represent all the continents. If none of the selected companies was present in the represented region, one of the most visited in the continent was chosen and added to the analyses. Inclusions were based on the most visited places statistics according to Statista and Similarweb. The steps are shown in Figure 1. One of the goals of sustainable development is SDG 4 “quality education.” In this context, companies supporting the implementation of SDGs should provide clear information for their stakeholders. After reviewing information about sustainability

Figure 1. E-commerce marketplaces representation

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from the top five e-commerce sites, it was found that “sustainability reports” or “ESG Reports” (environmental, Social, and Corporate governance) are the main tools for reporting sustainability achievement. Sustainability reports can be provided through standards developed by Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB). SASB is a nonprofit organization that sets standards for disclosing Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) information (Hales 2021). However, reports could differ in focus, quality, or frequency of disclosures (Rodriguez et al. 2017). The marketplaces provided reports in different methods as sustainability programs, initiatives, materials, goals, or projects. The other way to report sustainability achievement and its performance was to use GRI (General Reporting Initiative) standards. GRIdeveloped international standards and reports are frequently presented according to preset rules (Jeriji et al. 2022). To guarantee interoperability in the naming convention the name “sustainability item” was considered and used. Each sustainability item was then aligned with the UN SDGs if the company provided a mapping of the item to the sustainable development goal/goals. The second step of the analysis was to track the ICT showcased by the marketplace or parent organization. The final steps compared the use of SDGs and adopted ICTs.

Representatives of Marketplaces According to Statista.com (Statista.com 2022b), the most monthly visited marketplaces in the world, as of July 2022, were Amazon (USA), eBay (USA), Shopee (Singapore), Rakuten (Japan), and AliExpress (China). Featured companies originate from North America or Asia and are the key players in the e-commerce market. However, due to the lack of companies from other continents, additional selection took place. According to Statista.com and Similarweb.com, the most visited online marketplace in South America was Mercado Libre (447 million visits), Australia was Woolworths (23.9 million visits), Africa was Jumia (with 23 million visits), and in Europe was Allegro (197 million visits). Due to incomplete information from Statista.com for Woolworths, Similarweb.com data was chosen (Similarweb. com 2022b). The final set of nine enterprises is presented in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Online marketplaces monthly visits as of July 2022 Source: Own study based on data from Statista.com and Similarweb.com

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ICT and SDG Implementation in E-commerce Marketplaces Characteristics of E-commerce Marketplaces Amazon Amazon is the most recognizable online marketplace. It accounts for over 5,690 million visits per month. It is the first company to move book retailers to the online industry (Mellahi and Johnson 2000). Amazon has been founded by Jeff Bezos in 1995 with the plan of creating a pure e-commerce company (O’Regan 2015). Product ranges are expanded beyond books and encompass electronics, households, or software goods. The company provides tools for third-party items as well as quality used, pre-owned goods through Amazon Warehouse. However, the program pertains to goods purchased on the website. Sustainability activities are presented in a sustainability report named “Delivering Progress Every Day. Amazon’s 2021 Sustainability Report.” Amazon defines its sustainable goals through its programs. Programs consist of 10 items. The company recognizes worldwide UN SDGs (Amazon 2021) and provides a mapping of programs to UN SDGs (Table 1). Table 1. Amazon’s alignment with UN SDGs Sustainability Item Building and transportation

Corresponding UN SDG 7, 9, 13

Renewable energy

7, 13

Waste and packaging

12, 17

Sustainability in the cloud Product sustainability Employee benefits Diversity, equity, and inclusion

6, 13 2, 9, 12, 14, 15, 17 3, 4, 8 5, 10

Supply chain

1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 13, 16, 17

Communities

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 11, 13, 17

Partnerships

17

Source: Own study based on a company report

ICTs mentioned in the report are cloud computing services (Amazon Web Services), SCM through supply chain standards), robotics, big data (among others through Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative; ASDI), AI (as driver assistance), IoT (as wearables for workers), and ML (as for sustainable packaging). eBay eBay was started in 1995 by Pierre Omidyar (Hillis et al. 2006). The company has provided a business model based on the dematerialization of the process of buying and selling at an auction (Kimble and Bourdon 2013). To provide a better

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financial payment system, eBay acquired PayPal. PayPal was a subsidiary firm from 2002 to 2014. eBay provides information about sustainability activities through “eBay Impact” (eBay 2022). Mapping to UN SDGs is provided. The company’s sustainability initiatives and business operations reflect six UN goals. Specified goals are presented in Table 2. Table 2. eBay’s alignment with UN SDGs Sustainability Item

Corresponding UN SDG

Gender equality

5 (5.1, 5.5)

Affordable and clean energy

7 (7.2, 7.3)

Decent work and economic growth

8 (8.1, 8.3, 8.5)

Responsible consumption and production

12 (12.5)

Climate action

13 (13.1)

Partnerships for the goals

17 (17.3)

Source: Own study based on eBay report

Due to the nature of the marketplace, eBay encourages sustainability actions among users by promoting re-commerce. In that perspective, marketplaces allow the selling of used goods through the C2C channel. Due to the heavy impact of transportation, eBay works on SCM through supply chain standards). Other ICT items include big data analysis (through data centers), AI usage, and ML. Unfortunately, it is not directly mentioned in the report and has to be found in the company’s official statements (Marr 2019). Shopee Shopee is a Singaporean international e-commerce company. It is part of Sea Limited company. Shopee was founded in 2015 and soon became one of the most popular e-commerce websites. It has grown to be a key player in the Southeast Asia region (Amsari and Sari 2022). Sustainability goals at Shopee are performed through ESG issues. However, the owner of Shopee, Sea Limited, did not specify a direct mapping of the ESG issues to the UN SDGs (SEA Inc. 2022). Shopee SDGs covered by the ESG strategy framework are presented in Table 3. Table 3. Shopee’s alignment with UN SDGs Sustainability Item

Mapping

Corresponding UN SDG

X

4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 17

Energy management Customer privacy Data security Employee engagement, diversity and inclusion Product design and lifecycle Source: Own study based on Sea Limited report

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The company allows to register as a seller but does not require to specify if the selling is provided as a professional company or an individual, thus C2C re-commerce cannot be applied. ICT usage is not directly displayed in the report. However, in the Sea group, there is a company listed alongside Shopee, SeaMonkey. The company is responsible for payment and billing operations. Another ICT item is focused on optimizing and driving logistic infrastructure (SCM). Big Data is also within the scope of the company’s interests. Shopee also relies on AI and ML technologies (Davenport and Miller 2022). Rakuten Rakuten is a Japanese group of businesses founded in 1997 as an internet marketplace Rakuten Ichiba (Rakuten Group 2022a). Rakuten Group has 1.6 billion members around the world. Rakuten Group defines its sustainable goals through the programs already implemented in its work. Programs consist of five items. The company recognizes worldwide UN SDGs and provides mapping to the UN SDGs. However, in opposition to Amazon, each program is defined by SASB standards as “Materiality” (Rakuten Group 2022b). Specified sustainability items are shown in Table 4. Table 4. Rakuten’s alignment with UN SDGs Sustainability Item

Corresponding UN SDG 8, 12

Specified UN SDGs Targets 8.7, 8.8, 12.2, 12.5, 12.8

Diversity, equity, and inclusion

8, 10

8.1, 10.2, 10.3

Innovation and entrepreneurship

9

9.1, 9.a, 9.b

Climate change and energy

9

13.1, 13.3

Empowerment

8

8.3

Sustainable production and consumption

Source: Own study based on Rakuten report

One of the key strengths of Rakuten’s business is the development of AI solutions for shopping personalization. From the Rakuten technology innovation page, it can be concluded that technologies like SCM, ML, cloud computing, and big data are also in the scope of interest (Rakuten Group 2022c). AliExpress AliExpress is a cross-border online marketplace, founded by Alibaba Group in 2010 in China (Chen and Wu 2021). The company is one of the most visited online marketplaces but lacks any information on sustainable development. There are no sustainability plans or programs available on their website, making further analysis of sustainability impossible. ICTs used by the company cannot be perceived through SDGs due to a lack of sustainability reports. However, official statements or scientific sources provide vital information. The company within the Alibaba Group has access to the financial division with AliPay (E-Payment), SCM (via Cainiao logistic networks), and cloud computing (Shcherbakov and Silkina 2021). It is also pointed out that AliExpress

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shop uses AI (Nagy and Hajdú 2021). In that context, of a large quantity of data Big Data and ML techniques are also employed. Mercadore Libre Mercadore Libre is an e-commerce company developed in Latin America. Marketplace belongs to MercadoLibre Inc and is present in 18 countries (MercadoLibre Inc 2022). It was founded in 1999 in Buenos Aires by Marcos Galperin (Hortaçsu et al. 2009). Mercadore Libre provides a mapping of material issues to the UN SDGs through GRI standards. Mapping results are presented in Table 5. Table 5. Mercadore Libre’s alignment with UN SDGs Project Reduction of our environmental footprint

Sustainability Item Clean transportation

Corresponding UN SDG 9, 11, 13

Land conservation and preservation

15

Renewable energy

7

Eco-efficient sustainable materials and circular economy processes Green buildings Energy efficiency and smart metering Waste reduction strategies Financial inclusion

Access to finance

Social development and empowerment

Socioeconomic advancement and empowerment through education

12, 13 7, 9 7, 9 12, 13 8, 10 4, 5, 8, 10

Source: Own study based on Mercadore Libre report

Mercadore Libre allows individuals to sell goods. Thus, the re-commerce concept is supported. However, the marketplace indicates that only 2% of transactions represent used goods. MercadoLibre Inc also invests in the creation of an advanced payment system. It includes issuing prepaid and hybrid cards, utilizing P2P transactions, or investing in low-risk assets. Other technologies involve AI and ML techniques. Another technology regarded the adaptation of logistic operations into the technology essence of the company, which provided adequate SCM. Due to large-scale operations and dealing with intercultural issues, big data technology is also included in the ICT setting. Allegro Allegro is a European e-commerce company. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was considered one of the most popular e-commerce companies in the world with 193.9 million visits per month (Ecommerce News 2020). Allegro is continuing its activity and is set as the 9th most visited e-commerce marketplace in the world with 197 million visits (Statista.com 2022c). However, its operations are limited to European Union countries. Allegro provides sustainability reports based on ESG standards (Allegro.eu S.A. Group 2022). Sustainability items are shown in Table 6.

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Empirical Approaches to Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability Table 6. Allegro’s alignment with UN SDGs Sustainability Item

Corresponding UN SDG

Customers at the center of attention

4, 10

A platform of growth for merchants

4, 12

Employees

4, 8

Diversity and inclusion

5, 10, 17

Social and charity work

13

Technology education

9

Environmental impact

13

Source: Own study based on Allegro report

Allegro allows C2C sales, thus, enabling the e-commerce concept to the individuals. In its report, the company pointed out financial systems of loans, Allegro Pay (E-Payment), logistic automated parcel machines, APM (which is considered as SCM technology), getting revenues from data processing (considered as ML and Big Data technologies), and hosting activities (considered as cloud computing). There is also mention that the company provides “tools to monitor sales performance and manage offer competitiveness,” which could be considered as AI solutions. Woolworths Woolworths is an Australian online store. It is part of Woolworths Group Limited company operating from Bella Vista, Sydney. Woolworths Group is Australia’s largest retailer (Woolworths Group 2022). The company offers products and delivery. Woolworths has its sustainability initiative named “Sustainability Plan 2025.” The initiative is divided into three goals: people, planet, and product. However, the company provided a mapping of sustainability goals to UN SDGs (Table 7). Table 7. Woolworths’ alignment with UN SDGs Initiative People

Planet

Sustainability Item Be a truly inclusive workplace Create meaningful retail careers for today and tomorrow Invest in the holistic well-being of our team Activate ethical and mutually beneficial partnerships throughout the whole value chain Have a positive impact on our customers and communities

Corresponding UN SDG 3, 5, 8, 10 8 3 8, 10, 11, 12 2, 10, 11, 17

Net positive carbon emissions by 2050

7, 9, 11, 13

100% green electricity by 2025 Zero food waste to landfill by 2025 Practice responsible stewardship of natural resources

7, 9, 11, 13 2, 12, 17 6, 12, 14, 15

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Sustainable E-commerce in the Perspective of SDGs and Online... Product

Materially increase healthier choices in our customers’ baskets 100% of own brand sustainable packaging

3 12

100% of own brand sourcing is sustainable Lead the future of protein Lead the responsible retailing and consumption of alcohol and tobacco

12, 13, 15 12, 14 3

Source: Own study based on Woolworths Group report

Woolworths, due to its base as a retail store, does not offer used goods resell. The store provides digital financial services like insurance or credit cards, which is considered in this study as E-Payment technology. The company has an advanced delivery system, which is considered SCM technology. It also provides a digital, and analytics-enabled platform which is considered as Big Data and ML technologies. Woolworths report also mentioned the usage of AI and cloud computing technologies. Jumia Jumia is the leading e-commerce marketplace in Africa. It operates in 11 countries with a potential reach of 631 million people (Jumia Group 2022). Jumia’s sustainability program is aligned with UN SDGs through an ESG strategy framework that involves material themes and SASB material topics for e-commerce (Table 8). Table 8. Jumia’s alignment with UN SDGs ESG

Sustainability item

Corresponding UN SDG

Environment

Minimizing impact on the environment

12

Social

Providing convenience accessibility, and affordability to the consumer Empowering sellers, partners, and communities Building an engaged, inclusive, and diverse workforce

10

Governance

3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10 5, 8

Operating with strong governance and ethical standards

Source: Own study based on Jumia Group report

Jumia sells refurbished phones. However, selling goods is only allowed for registered business entities. Thus, in the C2C concept, re-commerce cannot be established. Jumia’s main operation is the marketplace, but it is supported by the digital payment platform JumiaPay (considered as E-Payment technology). SCM technology is also supported through the usage of the Jumia Logistics part, which consists of an integrated network of warehouses, Pick-up, and drop-off stations. Jumia relies on Amazon Web Services, thus cloud computing is supported. However, Jumia’s statement that the company uses “A Content Delivery Network (CDN) that consists of a geographic grouping of servers which work together” and a layer of “a

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Empirical Approaches to Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability

three-tier IT system architecture.” This means that the functional process logic, data access, computer data storage, and user interface are developed and maintained as independent modules on a separate platform,” which suggests big data technology is used. Another used technology consists of a system for the analysis of suspicious patterns that allows one to acknowledge that ML technology is used.

Analysis of Technology Dimensions UN SDGs aimed by the online marketplaces are presented in Table 9. From the perspective of SDGs, most goals are aimed by Amazon and eBay (100%). The next places were taken by Woolworths (82.4%), Mercado Libre (58.8%), Allegro alongside Shopee (47.1%), Jumia (41.2%), and Rakuten (29.4%). AliExpres with no SDG aim took the last place. Not all SDGs are realized by selected companies. The most realized SDGs were 8 and 10 (88.9% of companies), followed by 5, 9, 12, 13 (77.8% of companies), 4, (66.7% of companies), 7, 11, 17 (55.6% of companies), 3, 15 (44.4% of companies), 2, 6, 14 (33.3% of companies), and 1 and 16 (22.2% of companies). ICTs used by companies are presented in Table 10. Companies that use the most technologies were Amazon, AliExpress, Alegro, and Woolworths with 85.7%, followed by eBay, Shopee, Rakuten, Mercado Libre, and Jumia (71.4%). The most used technologies were big data, ML, and SCM (100% companies), followed by AI (88.9%), cloud computing (77.8%), E-Payment (66.7%), and IoT (11.1%). Dimensions of realized SDGs and ICTs used were joined on a scatter plot (Figure 3). Figure 3 shows a two-dimensional array of ICT used and SDGs aimed.

Figure 3. Dimensions of realized SDGs and ICTs used

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Sustainable E-commerce in the Perspective of SDGs and Online...

1

No poverty

X

X

2

Zero hunger

X

X

X

3

Good health and well-being

X

X

X

4

Quality education

X

X

X

X

X

5

Gender equality

X

X

X

X

X

6

Clean water and sanitation

X

X

7

Affordable and clean energy

X

X

X

8

Decent work and economic growth

X

X

X

9

Industry, innovation, and infrastructure

X

X

10

Reduced inequalities

X

X

X

11

Sustainable cities and communities

X

X

X

12

Responsible consumption and production

X

X

13

Climate action

X

X

14

Life below water

X

X

15

Life on land

X

X

16

Peace, justice, and strong institutions

X

X

17

Partnerships for the goals

X

X

X

17

17

8

Total

X

X

Jumia

Woolworths

Total

Mercado Libre Allegro

AliExpress

Rakuten

Shopee

Company

eBay

SDG

Amazon

SDG No.

2

22.2

3

33.3

X

4

44.4

X

6

66.7

X

7

77.8

X

3

33.3

X

5

55.6

X

X

X

X

X

X

8

88.9

X

X

X

X

X

7

77.8

X

X

X

X

X

8

88.9

5

55.6

7

77.8

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

7

77.8

X

3

33.3

X

4

44.4

2

22.2

5

55.6

X

5

0

10

X

X

8

14

X

7

% of SDGs Aimed by 100.0 100.0 47.1 29.4 0.0 58.8 47.1 82.4 41.2 the Company Source: Own study

% of Companies Realizing SDG

Table 9. SDGs aimed by companies

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Empirical Approaches to Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability

Jumia

Woolworths

Allegro

Total

Mercado Libre

AliExpress

Rakuten

Shopee

eBay

Company

Amazon

Tech. Technology no

% of companies using specified technology

Table 10. ICTs used by companies

1

AI

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

8

88.9

2

Big Data

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

9

100.0

3

Cloud Computing

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

7

77.8

4

E-Payment

6

66.7

5

IoT

X

6

ML

X

X

X

7

SCM

X

X

6

5

Total % of ICTs Used by the Company

X

X

X

X

X

X

1

11.1

X

X

X

X

X

X

9

100.0

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

9

100.0

5

5

6

5

6

6

5

85.7 71.4 71.4 71.4 85.7 71.4 85.7 85.7 71.4

ICT and SDGs in E-Commerce An analysis of the use of ICT and the goals of the SDGs shown in Figure 3 revealed interesting relationships that allow the formation of groups of similar companies. The largest group is represented by Rakuten, Jumia, Allegro, Shopee, and Mercado Libre. They are characterized by a medium number of SDGs aimed (5 to 10) and 5 to 6 technologies used. The second with the highest number of SDGs targeted (14 to 17), and the highest technologies used (5 to 6) are represented by eBay, Amazon, and Woolworths. eBay has lower technology usage (5) but also the highest SDGs targeted (17). On the other end is AliExpress, which shows no interest in sustainable development but aims at the highest technology usage (6). eBay, Amazon, and Woolworth represent the biggest players in the world and accordingly in the continent. Amazon has no direct competitor in the world, while Woolworths has no direct competitor on the more difficult-to-reach continent. Both companies are technologically advanced and pay attention to maintaining sustainability policy, while eBay is the leader in re-commerce. In that context developed models and their testing on realistic data revealed that there is a causal system structure of ICT impact on environmental sustainability (Achachlouei and Hilty 2015). Presented findings also revealed that larger companies are also investing in new ICTs. There is, however, the exception of eBay, which does not embrace a full set of technologies, but its business model is concentrated on the creation of a value chain instead of using a wider spectrum of technologies (Kimble and Bourdon 2013).

Sustainable E-commerce in the Perspective of SDGs and Online...

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Jumia as well as Mercado Libre, AliExpress, Shopee, and Woolworths provide their digital payment platforms. The findings of Wamuyu (Wamuyu 2015) indicated that crucial to providing effective ICT adoption in sustainable aware enterprises in less developed regions must include reliable payment systems. The qualitative study found that unreliable billing systems may lead to the probable closure of ICT-based enterprises. However, the presented study did not confirm those findings. The large difference in scale of operations [for instance, Jumia (23 million) and Mercado (447 million visits)] can suggest that company size has no significant impact on results in sustainability level. However, eBay spin off PayPal into a separate publicly traded company in 2014, thus leaving itself without an additional E-Payment system. But this action may be supported due to changes in the business model. Through the analysis of sustainability reports, it can be concluded that used technologies are not always highlighted for the readers. While Amazon indicates ICT usage, eBay or Shopee are not as straightforward. To list the technologies, the explained sustainable activities must be carefully examined. It is in line with the studies by Kimble and Bourdon (Kimble and Bourdon 2013), which suggested that eBay provides its business strategy. The negative sustainability context of AliExpress, which is a highly ICTadvanced company, may be due to a lack of collaboration in achieving sustainable development. A study by Oláh et al. (2019) showed that to ensure sustainable e-commerce, the collaboration of stakeholders in the virtual market is required. Thus, if there are no interests of stakeholders in the sustainable development of the company no SDGs would be aimed. In that scope hypothesis H1 stating that representatives of e-commerce marketplaces are the adopters of UN SDGs can be positively verified. The negative case of AliExpress should be further analyzed and cannot change the perspective on the e-commerce market players. The 2nd hypothesis H2 stating that ICT adoption among sustainability-aware e-commerce marketplaces must include the usage of high-tech technologies may be also confirmed. While not all high-tech ICTs were used by online marketplaces, no less than 71% of them were used by companies. It has to be taken into consideration that not all technologies should be developed by the organization in the sustainability context. The case of Jumia, which uses matured tech of Amazon instead of developing its cloud computing platform, supports this assumption.

Conclusions The study revealed that in the context of sustainable development and ICT used there can be relations that may provide further grouping of sustainability adopters among e-commerce enterprises. While the UN sets up SDGs goals, then their fulfillment should be also reflected on a different international level. From provided results, one can see that even the largest organizations are not providing information about achieving SDGs, while the smallest try to provide its growth according to sustainability goals sets by international society. Analyzing a different kind of organization brings a new perspective on reaching SDGs through the most ICTadvanced companies in the e-commerce sector.

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The novelty of the proposed approach lies in the presentation of ICTs against UN SDGs aimed for realization by reviewed companies as well as the method of choosing representatives for sustainable e-commerce analysis. This approach contributes to knowledge development by adding a methodology perspective for providing a mapping framework for sustainability goals analyses. Practical contribution to knowledge development is provided by pointing directions of lesser ICT usage to IoT (11.1%) and highest usage as big data or ML as well as pointing different SDGs adoption levels. Results suggest a new direction for research. One of them is finding when company size plays a role in achieving SDGs. The case of eBay and Amazon indicates that leaders of a global scale aimed for the highest level of SDGs. However, the case of Woolworth with a high number of SDGs aimed, the leader of Australia, may be connected to geographical location and should be further analyzed. The theoretical contribution is provided through a literature review in the context of used ICT and e-commerce companies research. Methodological contribution is provided through the developed framework of mapping companies’ custom sustainability goals to SDGs assigned by the UN and the analysis of the proposed method of choosing e-commerce representatives. The limitation of the study is ICT usage and provision. While most technologies are used by studied companies, some of them are maintaining them on their infrastructure while others use ICT already provided by direct competitors. The second limitation is the source of information and communication technologies used by companies. Relying solely on sustainability reports can lead to incorrect conclusions about the technologies used. It is therefore necessary to use broader sources of data on the companies analyzed.

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CHAPTER

11

The Impact of Technical Aspects of E-commerce on Sustainability. Comparative Study of Poland, Turkey, and China Marek Zborowski1*, Witold Chmielarz1, Jin Xuetao2, Mesut Atasever3 and Justyna Szpakowska2 1 2

3

University of Warsaw, Poland; [email protected]; [email protected] Communication University of China, China; [email protected]; [email protected] Uşak University, Türkiye; [email protected]

Introduction A comparative study into the determinants of e-commerce in three selected countries: Poland, Türkiye, and the PRC (People’s Republic of China). The study analyzed these countries in three different cross-sections, with a focus on the following aspects: • Broad comparisons between the analyzed countries; • Comparison of dynamics i.e., the situation before and during the COVID-19 pandemic; • Comparison of technical infrastructure, focusing mainly on the differences between mobile devices (such as smartphones and tablets) and desktop devices (such as personal computers and desktop computers) used for e-commerce. The findings of the research conducted in the first two stages have already been published (Chmielarz et al. 2022a, 2022b). This chapter presents the third stage of the research described above. Its main purpose is to identify the place and role of the most popular devices used for individual users’ online operations related to e-commerce. Since the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the consistent predominance of personal computers applied in e-commerce began to change in favor of mobile devices. Mobile solutions were frequently seen as a more convenient and user-friendly option. The development of the social sphere, together *Corresponding author: [email protected]

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with information and communication services, was also an important change, thus facilitating the growth of e-commerce. The next aspect addressed in the analyses was the COVID-19 pandemic, with a series of imposed measures, that are often illogical and chaotic, restricting free trade and diverting commercial activities to the internet as the sole available solution, in an attempt to limit the influence of the COVID-19 spread in populations. Factors directly or indirectly impacting the situation, included restrictions on movement and business meetings, total and partial bans on leaving home, bans on travel to and from a particular country or selected countries, as well as orders and bans concerning remote activities. Another aspect discussed in the literature concerned technical issues related to hardware i.e., owning a device that enabled the use of e-commerce and using appropriate software and familiarity with it as well as network access. The issue of hardware, obtaining or buying software, and appropriate training was associated with costs. Opting for a device that was cheaper than a laptop, along with cheaper albeit somewhat limited software, seemed to be a more rational solution. It is important to note that the rapid growth in sales and applications of smartphones, along with accompanying software, facilitates the development of these phenomena. This explains the growing momentum in the development of smartphones, mobile applications, and related m-commerce transactions. Under the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic, the transition from PC-supported e-commerce to e-commerce supported mainly by smartphones seemed an almost natural process, thus alleviating the economic crisis quickly and at a relatively low cost (Heyns and Kilbourn 2022). The chapter focuses on the changes related to m-commerce, and it includes a comparison of three countries that differ in their cultural, technological, political, and economic characteristics. In this context, the question arises: Has the development of e-commerce flourished in all three countries thanks to smartphones? And if not, how have customers’ preferences for e-commerce evolved through i-commerce or rather through m-commerce? Furthermore, what were the differences between the countries regarding the use of desktop and mobile devices? In the presented study, the solutions related to e-commerce development strategies varied in terms of the scope of restrictions, as well as purchasing solutions and types of payment. However, any international comparisons and evaluations (Galhotra and Dewan 2020), even if they relate only to statistical facts (Alcedo et al. 2022; Chevalier 2021; Pantelimon et al. 2020) are very difficult to conduct due to the various factors affecting the development of e-commerce. The main focus of the research was on purchasing behavior; nevertheless, in this article, technological issues were also distinguished, similar to other studies discussed in the literature (Nguyen et al. 2021; He et al. 2021; Beaunoyer et al. 2020). There are several studies on the subject. They deal with individual countries (Chmielarz et al. 2021) or culturally and technologically similar countries (Shaw et al. 2022). However, there occurs a specific research gap concerning studies on countries with different economic, technological, and cultural factors, which cover a broad context of the e-commerce phenomenon. This includes regional, temporal, and technological analyses. The same can be said about the impact of e-commerce on sustainability (Oláh et al. 2019; Yi et al. 2022; Xie et al. 2023; Fedirko et al. 2021). Thus, the objective of the chapter is to fill, at least partially, the existing research gap.

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E-Commerce Development as the Basis of Sustainability One of the undeniable foundations of creating a sustainable society is the optimal use of modern communication and information technologies in the economy and society (Hilty and Hercheui 2010; Miller and Atkinson 2014; Nord et al. 2016). The optimal use of technological resources was the basis upon which the concept of sustainable development leading to a smart society was created. In the literature (Fuchs 2010), there is a wide discussion concerning sustainability related to economic and social development, present not only in theoretical considerations but also manifested in practical analyses and contexts (Schauer 2003). The most important and commonly applied interpretation of sustainability is connected with finding a balance between socio-cultural, economic-ecological, and administrative-political aspects of the development (Ziemba 2016). Thus, the concept is no longer associated exclusively with the ecological sustainability of natural resources (Freeman 2010), which, until recently, excluded the considerations involving technologies unless they served ecological purposes. Due to numerous commercial references, the definitions of e-commerce remained largely unchanged for a long time (Turban et al. 2021; Wang et al. 2017). When mobile solutions were becoming more and more popular among users, there occurred a specific division of e-commerce into Internet commerce. Since smartphone/tablet mobile devices can be used for both online and mobile commerce, the correct distinction for the latter should be one consisting in using only mobile e-commerce applications. However, initially, customers often used both options via their smartphones, and the statistics showed all these operations as mobile. Therefore, most statistics that distinguish between mobile and online operations refer to the device as a criterion for division rather than the type of software used by the customer (Barbrich and Nocoń 2022). In this study, all transactions performed using a smartphone are regarded as mobile. The broader definitions of e-commerce highlight various functionalities involved in this phenomenon (Alcedo et al. 2022). E-commerce is also the subject of numerous analyses carried out from the point of view of various economic, organizational, and legal criteria (UNCTAD 2021; Xinhua 2017), various other sectors (Tang et al. 2016) or different countries and regions (Wang et al. 2017; Wang et al. 2021, E-Commerce 2020; Chmielarz et al. 2021a, 2021b; Fannin 2017; Torgaloz et al. 2022). The role of e-commerce in the economy has grown dynamically during the COVID-19 pandemic, which accelerated globalization by reducing the differences between regions. At present, the goal is to use the advantage of convergence trends to facilitate sustainable development in the area of information technologies. Globally, this is hindered by different levels of economic development, traditions, or culturedependent approaches to technology. It seems that smartphones and smartphone apps, as a cheaper alternative to laptops may support, facilitate, and accelerate the development of sustainability around the world. Therefore, the environmental, social, and economic aspects are significant to the e-commerce sector on both the retailer and consumer sides.

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The sustainable e-commerce category is considered in this chapter as an assimilation of the development of various forms of e-commerce on a global scale as a sustainability success factor. Taking the above into account, we can claim that the expansion of e-commerce via smartphones, growing globally and converging in individual countries, meets the postulates contained in the definitions (Ziemba 2016) of the sustainable information society. In this way, m-commerce is treated in this chapter as one of the most important technological success factors in building a sustainable society for the next smart generation, both from the economic, ecological, and socio-cultural points of view of stakeholders. This aspect is recognized more and more often in contemporary literature (Oláh et al. 2019; Yi et al. 2022); however, it is still rare to capture it on the scale of different cultures (Xie et al. 2023; Fedirko et al. 2021). This can also be seen in the realm of international comparisons of e-commerce use in the economy. An article (Shen 2020) presenting a comparative analysis of e-commerce during the pandemic, based on rich statistical data, such as reports (Digital Economy Report 2019) concluded that the PRC has become the leading country in the use of e-commerce due to a clear vision of its development and consistency in its implementation. Mexico, in turn, is pursuing the “classic” model of gradual development of e-commerce alongside more traditional but less economically efficient trade. This claim is supported by the evidence presented in the article (Martinsons 2002), although it analyzes only those companies in the PRC that are outstanding examples of success achieved through e-commerce. The phenomena related to the spread of the COVID-19 virus also contributed to the development of sustainability on a global scale. The pandemic period, in particular, led to a significant reduction in mobility both in professional and private life (Waizenegger et al. 2020; Sirimanne 2021). The pandemic threat is still significant, though the occurrences of COVID-19 at present are seen as less severe and limited in scope and the disease itself appears in various forms (most recently in the omicron version). Analyses of consumer behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic (UNCTAD 2021; E-Commerce 2022; Nguyen et al. 2021; Tarasiuk and Dłużniewska 2021; Waizenegger et al. 2020; Wang et al. 2021; Gössling et al. 2021) showed the scale and intensity of the transformation in this regard. Existing behavioral analyses of consumers during the COVID-19 pandemic presented in the literature (Tarasiuk and Dłużniewska 2021; Gerlich 2021; He et al. 2021) identified both the size of the abovementioned changes and their dynamics. The occurrence of the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on changes in consumer behavior in both i-commerce and m-commerce. The change in customer behavior was primarily related to the devices chosen by customers to use the services and sales applications. An analysis of these changes can be seen in a number of articles including (Chopdar et al. 2022), which identified the determinants of changes in customer shopping behavior and observed the development of new shopping practices in response to the pandemic crisis. Analyses of m-commerce were also carried out drawing on a conceptual model and investigating the impact of mobile service quality on m-commerce shopping (Omar et al. 2021). The differences between shopping in the tangible and intangible spheres before and during the COVID-19 pandemic were also studied in the literature.

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A specific characteristic of the tangible sphere is that e-commerce only supports shopping transactions in the area rather than completely replacing it. The impact of retail consumer behavior on e-commerce was the subject of another study (Beckers et al. 2021). It turned out that under the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Belgian market there occurred short-term changes, resulting from the restrictions necessitating online trading. The current research, conducted by the authors, is international in nature and falls within the mainstream of the global literature related to this study field. The studies also allow for filling the research gap that exists in comparing the situation in the analyzed countries, especially in terms of the use of mobile (m-commerce) and desktop (i-commerce) devices in e-commerce, in the period before and during the pandemic. The findings concerning the differences occurring between particular countries may prove helpful in analyzing convergence phenomena supporting both sustainable development and the creation of a smart society.

Method of the Problems Solution for Impact of E-commerce on Sustainability The following research procedure was adopted and agreed upon with the partners of the research project: • Common determination of the content of the pilot survey; in this, the process involved the entire research team; • Conducting the pilot survey with the participation of randomly selected respondents, which allowed for assessing the comprehensibility and relevance of the criteria; • Verification of the basic version of the survey, the creation of the final version, and its execution, • Statistical and logical analysis of the obtained results and their discussion; • Concluding the analyses; • Identifying limitations of the survey and potential directions for further research. The survey was conducted in two stages: before the pandemic (early 2020) and during the pandemic (2021). It was carried out simultaneously in three countries: Poland, Türkiye, and the PRC using a survey made with the LimeSurvey tool. The language of communication was English, but the survey questions were translated into national languages. The survey included 49 questions which were divided into five sections concerning:

• • • • •

Information on infrastructure and customer attitudes toward e-commerce; Implementation of e-commerce on mobile devices and desktop devices; The use of e-commerce devices before and during a pandemic; The possibility of the delivery of services and products in e-commerce; Demographic data. To carry out international comparisons in the functioning of e-commerce

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transactions handled by mobile and desktop devices, the authors selected mainly questions from the third section of the survey. They also included four symmetrical questions (two each) with the division into mobile versus desktop devices, thus examining the extent of purchases made with the use of both types of devices before and during the pandemic as well as the basic types of payments applied for mobile and desktop purchases. To assess the internal consistency of the collected data, Cronbach’s alpha was calculated for each analyzed country. In all analyzed key questions, this coefficient indicates the internal consistency and reliability of the sample (Chevalier 2021). The internal consistency measure of the dependent variables for the three compared countries, which was based on Cronbach’s alpha coefficient, amounted to an average of 0.75 (and 0.78 for Cronbach’s alpha calculated based on standardized items), for a total of 49 items in three selected countries. The calculations carried out in this chapter depended on the subsequent criteria:



• Since each criterion for evaluating the type of device used in e-commerce of mobile and desktop devices contained sub-criteria, in the first step for each subcriterion, Euclidean differences and the Fisher-Snedecor test were established to assess the variation between responses concerning the use of mobile and desktop devices. • For the selected four cases related to detailed evaluations of pairs of them related to shopping via mobile and desktop devices, analyses were conducted for the period before and during the pandemic period. • For this case, differences between Euclidean distances and the Fisher-Snedecor test were calculated and evaluated.

Additionally, the authors formulated the H0 hypothesis about the existence of differences in the scale and level of development of electronic commerce when using mobile and desktop devices, grouped in individual pairs of the three analyzed countries: Poland and Türkiye, Poland and the PRC, and Türkiye and the PRC. This is in contrast to the H1 hypothesis, which posits the existence of differences with the assumed probability of 0.05., in the values regarding individual criteria and groups of analyzed criteria. To prove this hypothesis, the significance level of α was calculated for the probability distribution of the Fisher-Snedecor inverse (right-hand) value. The Fisher-Snedecor test can be used to compare the degree of variability of two data sets for two populations (including the study of the distribution of the assessment of differences in opinions on the level and development of e-commerce between Poland, Türkiye, and the PRC and to compare it with the p-value determined based on test statistics. If p ≤ α, then we adopt H0 and reject H1, if p ≥ α, then we reject H0 and take H1. Analyses based on the overall data obtained from the survey are presented in detail in the paper (Chmielarz et al. 2022), the present research was narrowed down to the topics specified at the beginning of the chapter. Demographic data were included in the last section of the research questionnaire. They have been described in detail in previous work by the authors (Chmielarz et al. 2022).

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Impact of Technical Aspects of E-commerce on Sustainability As mentioned previously, the analyses were carried out for selected criteria concerning the types of devices used in e-commerce from among all evaluation criteria, and for the six criteria considered in pairs (mobile/desktop devices) for which detailed information on the evaluation of the individual sub-criteria contained within each criterion was obtained. The following criteria were taken into account: • The type of device(s) used for e-commerce; • The type of products/services purchased via a mobile and desktop channel; • Type of payment used for purchases on mobile/desktop devices. The first section of the survey, described in the previous subchapter, included introductory information concerning infrastructure, common to the analyses in all three aspects considered and it is detailed described in (Chmielarz et al. 2022a). The second section of the survey provided information on the use of different types of devices when shopping online (mobile/desktop) before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Opinions about the dominant role of the smartphone prevailed, with 86% of respondents using a smartphone for online shopping in the PRC and 66% in Türkiye. In Poland, the answer “I use both variants (smartphone and laptop)” dominated by a significant margin (71%), depending on the type of shopping, while 19% of respondents stated they used only a smartphone for e-commerce. The biggest difference was between Poland and the PRC (67%). This may be due to the different e-commerce models adopted not only in Poland but throughout the European Union as well. For years, the focus was on developing e-commerce using desktop devices, and after the first decade of the 21st century, the transition to m-commerce was slower than in the case of the PRC. To develop e-commerce quickly and reduce costs related to it, the PRC chose the strategy of centrally controlled, well-organized development of mobile commerce.

Structure of E-commerce Purchases by Devices Used The third section of the study was devoted to the analysis of purchases of individual e-commerce products in the selected countries. The analysis was carried out by crosssection of each country in terms of the use of mobile/desktop devices for e-commerce in the pre-pandemic period and during the pandemic. The analysis covered nine groups of products/services, including clothing and footwear, books, movies, and music, home appliances, cosmetics, hardware and computer accessories, computer games, and transportation tickets, such as tickets for cultural events and tourist trips. Compared to the pre-pandemic period, in Poland, m-commerce saw an increase in purchases across various categories. Transportation tickets saw an increase of 30% to 40%, computer games witnessed an increase of 15% up to 26%, and clothing and footwear saw a modest increase of 1% to 8%. However, the largest declines occurred in terms of the cosmetics category, ranging from 13% to 5%, and in books, movies, and music, ranging from 11% to 5%. In the case of purchases made with desktop devices, there was a small increase in the categories of tickets for cultural events

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(2% to 12%) and tourist trips (up to 7%). There was a decline of 3% in purchases of clothing, footwear, and cosmetics, but these values still remained relatively high at 19% and 15%, respectively. Purchases in other categories remained unchanged (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Changes in purchases of selected products/services in Poland using mobile/desktop devices, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic

In Türkiye, mobile purchases during the pandemic saw a 12% increase in spending on travel, reaching 17%. There was also a slight increase in spending on computer hardware and accessories. However, the largest 4% decrease occurred in the case of purchases of books, movies, and music, and a 3% decrease in clothing and footwear. On the other hand, purchases using desktop equipment showed high dynamics. Shopping for clothing and footwear books, movies, and music, and home appliances declined by an average of 2%. Yet, the cosmetics category saw an increase of 3% to the level of 13%. Additionally, there was a similar 1–2% increase in purchases of other sub-criteria (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Changes in purchases of selected products/services in Türkiye using mobile/desktop devices, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic

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In the PRC, purchases via mobile devices increased by 1–2% in categories such as household appliances (up to 16%), cosmetics (to 11%), and tickets to cultural events (to 10%). In the sub-criteria of clothing and footwear (16%) and transportation tickets (12%), sales volumes remained unchanged. In the case of purchases via desktop devices, a decrease of up to 26% occurred in purchases of cosmetics, while in the other categories, there was an increase estimated at 2–4% (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Changes in purchases of selected products/services in the PRC using mobile/desktop devices, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic

In addition, Euclidean differences in the use of mobile and desktop devices before and during the pandemic in each country were calculated (Table 1). The largest differences in the use of mobile devices occurred in Poland (93% Euclidean difference) during the pandemic, which is caused mainly by a 27% difference in the purchase of tickets for cultural events (since there were no cultural events people could attend). Before the pandemic, the largest differences occurred in the PRC, which is primarily due to differences in cosmetics purchases made by specific types of devices. As can be observed, the PRC led the way in the differential use of desktop devices with a rate of 53%, primarily due to a 28% difference in cosmetics purchases. In other countries, the differences were four to five times smaller (Table 1). To test the hypothesis of variation in devices used for e-commerce across countries, an inverse F-Snedecor test was calculated. The threshold value for the probability = 0.05 for this sample amounts to 1.9526. It was exceeded in the case of Poland and the PRC, thus indicating significant differences in the structure of purchases using mobile and desktop devices between the pre-pandemic period and during the pandemic, and was not exceeded in the case of Türkiye as confirmed by the results of Euclidean distance calculations.

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The Impact of Technical Aspects of E-commerce on Sustainability... Table 1. Euclidean differences in the use of mobile and desktop devices in the structure of purchases before and during the pandemic Countries/Differences between Mobile and Desktop Devices/Year Products/Services

Poland 2020

Poland 2021

Türkiye 2020

Türkiye 2021

PRC 2020

PRC 2021

Clothing and footwear

14.45%

10.98%

0.85%

2.30%

5.09%

0.96%

Books, movies, and music

2.81%

7.65%

0.65%

2.47%

4.96%

0.31%

Household appliances

1.61%

4.12%

2.44%

1.64%

4.48%

1.79%

Cosmetics

2.78%

6.75%

0.23%

4.15%

28.34%

0.34%

Hardware and computer accessories

2.19%

5.33%

0.33%

0.49%

2.92%

0.25%

Computer games

4.20%

18.94%

2.13%

0.33%

3.03%

0.90%

Transportation tickets

2.16%

7.24%

2.02%

0.03%

3.06%

0.24%

Tickets for cultural events

0.50%

27.44%

2.41%

0.68%

1.50%

0.84%

Tourist trips

2.52%

4.31%

0.22%

10.68%

3.32%

1.91%

Euclidean distance

33.23%

92.77%

11.27%

22.77%

56.69%

7.53%

Variance

0.17%

0.01%

0.66%

0.66%

0.10%

0.00%

Standard deviation

0.51%

0.13%

1.01%

1.01%

0.40%

0.08%

Inverse F-Snedecor test

4.0841

1.0004

4.9016

Structure of E-commerce Payments by Devices Used The fourth section deals with a comparison of payment methods for e-commerce conducted on mobile and desktop devices, before and during the pandemic. The analysis was conducted by a cross-section of each country in terms of the use of different types of payments when using mobile/desktop devices for e-commerce in the pre-pandemic period and during the pandemic. The analyses included five groups of payments, such as card, e-money, bank transfer, cash (pre-payment and payment after purchase), and downloading only free products/services. During the pandemic period in Poland, the share of downloading only free goods and services grew significantly i.e., by 30%. This resulted in a decrease in the dynamics of all other types of m-commerce payments, most notably in card payments, estimated to be between 10% to 24%, as well as bank transfer payments, which decreased by 9%. In desktop-based e-commerce, the share of card payments increased by 7% to reach 35%, while the share of bank transfers also saw an increase of 5% to reach 35%. The share of e-money transactions increased by 3%. However, cash payments experienced a decrease of 15% to reach the level of 15% (Figure 4). In Türkiye, the share of card payments increased the most (by 7%) when shopping via mobile devices. As a result, this type of payment now ranks first in the case of payment category. Payments by bank transfer also increased by 4% to reach the level of 23%. Payments via cash declined by as much as 15%, now ranking second with a

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24% response rate against the minimal growth in the case of other forms of payment. On the other hand, in the case of payments made via desktop devices, various forms of cash payments still dominate (57%), although they declined by 10% during the pandemic. In other categories, they increased by 2–4%, with payments via bank transfers increasing the most (Figure 5).

Figure 4. Payments in Poland when shopping with mobile/desktop devices, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic

Figure 5. Payments in Türkiye when shopping with mobile/desktop devices, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic

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In the PRC, electronic money dominates the most in the case of shopping via mobile devices in both types of devices considered: mobile and desktop. In the case of mobile purchases, there was a 10% increase reaching a dominant level of 44%. The findings show a decrease of less than 1% in the case of shopping via desktop devices. In addition, during transactions via mobile devices, the use of payment cards increased from 5% to 20% and bank transfers from 2% to 19%. The category of downloading only free goods/services decreased the most i.e., from 22% to reach the level of 6%. The latter was mainly due to a change in the structure of purchases. E-commerce is dominated by purchases using e-money (41%) and payment cards (20%). In the case of both, an increase and decrease, only slight changes of up to 1% are noticeable (Figure 6.). The dominance of e-commerce in the PRC is due to economic policies that have allowed the country to create its own electronic money, which is the most convenient form of payment during a crisis. Similar changes are occurring in Poland, though it is important to indicate that it is happening more slowly.

Figure 6. Payments in the PRC while shopping with mobile/desktop devices, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic

In addition, Euclidean differences in the use of different types of payment made with mobile and desktop devices before and during the pandemic in each country were established. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the largest differences in the use of mobile and desktop devices occurred in Türkiye (67% Euclidean difference rate), which is caused mainly by the difference in purchases using cash forms. During the pandemic in Poland, the largest difference, estimated at the level of 65%, was due to differences observed in the free download of goods/services.

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Table 2. Euclidean differences in the use of payments before and during the pandemic Countries/Differences between Mobile and Desktop Devices/Year Types of Payments

Poland 2020

Poland 2021

Türkiye 2020

Türkiye 2021

PRC 2020

PRC 2021

Payment card

5.30%

10.79%

7.69%

11.79%

4.92%

0.54%

Electronic money

1.72%

3.19%

6.88%

7.89%

7.53%

2.95%

Bank transfer

2.30%

13.79%

9.32%

10.74%

4.99%

2.02%

Cash (pre-payment, payment after purchase)

9.57%

7.96%

27.44%

33.38%

3.29%

1.79%

I download only free products/services

0.24%

29.76%

3.32%

2.96%

20.73% 2.64%

Euclidean distance

19.13%

65.49%

54.65%

66.77%

41.46% 9.94%

Variance

0.14%

1.02%

0.90%

1.37%

0.51%

0.01%

Standard deviation

0.92%

2.52%

2.37%

2.93%

1.78%

0.23%

F-Snedecor test

2.7302

1.2344

0.1314

As far as the differentiation of the use of mobile and desktop devices before the pandemic is concerned, Poland leads the way with a rate of 19%. This is primarily due to the differences (10%) in purchases made with cash and very low differences (0–5%) in other types of payments (Table 2). To test the hypothesis concerning the variation in the types of payments made during purchases with the devices used for e-commerce in each country, an inverse F-Snedecor test was carried out. The threshold value for this sample with the assumed probability of 0.05 amounted to 1.1904. It was exceeded in the case of Poland and Türkiye, thus indicating significant differences in the structure of payments during purchases using mobile and desktop devices between the pre-pandemic period and during the pandemic. Furthermore, it was not exceeded in the case of the PRC, which was also confirmed by the results of Euclidean distance calculations.

Conclusions The research conducted on the regional and dynamic comparison of mobile and desktop device use allows for drawing the following conclusions essential for prerequisites of a sustainable society. First, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of mobile devices in e-commerce, smartphones, in particular, increased significantly. Compared to the pre-pandemic period, the biggest changes in this regard occurred in Poland. The development of commerce was impacted by the parallel use of personal computers in this area for the last few years. This was undoubtedly a more expensive strategy, but based on previous studies (Chmielarz et al. 2021a), it seems that it was in Poland that they were adopted first for remote work and learning. It led to their subsequent widespread use

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in e-commerce, especially in high-value operations. The PRC adopted a distinctly different strategy for developing online trade during the pandemic period. It was based mainly on the widespread use of smartphones and applications dedicated to mobile channels. In addition to the relatively lower cost of such a solution, noted earlier in the discussion presented in this chapter, the trend was also supported by additional determinants; namely, easily accessible, widespread, and China-specific payment methods and distribution methods. The results obtained in Türkiye were more similar to those obtained in Poland due to the greater cultural similarity between the countries. However, still, we may expect significant differences in this respect due to a different general concept of face-to-face trade—the approach which is seen as an inherent part of Turkish culture. Second, when taking into account the factors that determine the differences in e-commerce based on the type of device used for its implementation, the greatest differentiation calculated employing the Euclidean distance occurs in the case of the PRC. Specifically, this differentiation is observed in sub-criteria such as the speed of transactions, the ability to make transactions anywhere and anytime, and the security of transactions. In Poland, the smallest indicators of variation are related to the security of transactions, while in Türkiye, it occurs in connection with the speed of transactions. Research in the area of changes in the behavior of consumers using mobile devices during the COVID-19 pandemic in India (Chopdar et al. 2022) seems to confirm the observations made in this study. Third, it is important to indicate that the structure of purchases, as regards the two types of devices examined in the study, has changed. In Poland, the main differences during the pandemic occurred in the categories of transportation tickets and computer games, as well as clothing and footwear (an increase in purchases through smartphones). In the PRC, the biggest differences concerning the prepandemic period occurred in the cosmetics industry. In contrast to another study (Wang, et al. 2021), our results found no significant differences in terms of purchasing tourist trips using mobile devices. In Türkiye the tendency could be observed in tourist trips during the pandemic (shift to mobile shopping). Differences in the use of mobile devices in the area of m-commerce in Poland, Türkiye, and the PRC, evident in the study presented here are also reflected in the analyses of other researchers (Hu et al. 2023) concerning other economic and culturally distant countries. Fourth, far-reaching changes have taken place in payment methods in Poland in the area of the dominant differences in cash payments in the pre-pandemic period. In the case of mobile devices, the option of downloading all kinds of free electronic products and services increased the most. The latter took place at the expense of a decline in bank transfers of card payments. This has shaken the predominant model of payment by bank transfer, followed by card which used to be considered the safest and most popular choice in i-commerce. Due to the specific mobile model adopted for the development of online shopping and the creation of centralized, secure forms of electronic payments in the PRC, these kinds of payments are dominant in the case of both types of devices all the time (Xinhua 2017). The latter is true in the pandemic period, even at the expense of downloading fewer essential goods and free services. In Türkiye, the share of cash transfers and card payments increased at the expense of cash payments. Overall, the payment model in China changed the least. However, it

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is important to note that the changes which occurred concerned the same criteria as in the case of other countries (Wang et al. 2021). An additional factor was the greater ease of use of smartphone applications to perform basic e-commerce functions. Also, the change in the forms of propagation and distribution of e-commerce goods in China (live streaming, etc.) was an important development that deserves our attention (Tang et al. 2016; Zhou et al. 2017; Greenwald 2022). Fifth, differences between countries in the use of devices for e-commerce transactions carried out by individual customers turned out to be smaller than was assumed before the study. In terms of the structure of purchases, the threshold value of the F-Snedecor test was exceeded in the case of Poland and the PRC, indicating significant differences in the purchases using mobile and desktop devices between the pre-pandemic and pandemic periods. It was not exceeded in the case of Türkiye, as confirmed by the results of Euclidean distance calculations. In terms of the variation in the types of payments made during purchases via individual devices used for e-commerce in each country, the threshold value was exceeded in the case of Poland and Türkiye, thus indicating significant variation in the structure of payments during purchases using mobile and desktop devices between the pre-pandemic period and during the pandemic. It was not exceeded in the case of the PRC, which is also confirmed by the results of Euclidean distance calculations. This shows that in the case of more than 33% of the selected key attributes, no significant differences were observed between the use of different types of devices for online shopping. Summarizing the above conclusions, it can be assumed that: • The findings, cited in the context of other literature studies, support the thesis of the existing differentiation and changes in e-commerce in terms of both mobile and desktop devices in the specified product and service categories, as well as payment and delivery methods, before and during the pandemic. • This differentiation occurred both within and between the individual countries analyzed in the study. • This differentiation is confirmed by indicators, which are Euclidean distance and the inverse F-Snedecor test in nearly 67% of cases in the distinguished attributes. • A comparison of the number of differentiated indicators before and during the pandemic period indicates a reduction in differences between countries. • Despite the economic, organizational, and cultural differences that still exist, in the authors’ opinion, this indicates the convergence of the e-commerce development and an important role of the pandemic-induced crisis which impacted the process. It can, therefore, be finally concluded that, despite the proven differences, caused mainly by the directions of development stimulated by socio-cultural factors, there is a kind of similarity of phenomena related to e-commerce, leading to its sustainable development on a global scale. However, the above reassumption, despite the very broad scope of the study, has had its limitations. The first was related to conducting comparisons concerning the use of e-commerce devices in only three selected countries: Poland, Türkiye, and the PRC. The second was connected with analyzing only two periods: the beginning of 2020 and the beginning of 2021. The third limitation consisted in the fact that the

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survey was conducted in an academic environment, which, in line with the objective of the study, involved the most active customers of e-commerce, but led to a specific limitation in terms of both age variety of the sample and the financial resources at their disposal. The limitations of the research can be minimized in future studies by: • Expanding the number of countries; • Repeating the study after the COVID-19 pandemic ends; • Expanding the research sample. Conducting such wide-ranging research may allow for proving the thesis related to balancing the development of electronic business toward sustainability under specific conditions such as globalization processes or periods of a pandemic or economic crises. E-commerce is an important factor in the success of a sustainable society due to its positive impact on the economy, society, and the natural environment. Its dissemination around the world and the reduction of intercultural differences accelerated by the pandemic led directly to its rapid achievement.

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Shadow Information Technology for the Sustainable Facilitation of Knowledge Development at Universities Małgorzata Pańkowska* and Mariia Rizun University of Economics in Katowice, 40-287 Katowice, Bogucicka Street; [email protected]; [email protected]

Introduction Nowadays, business organizations have opportunities to deploy various information technology (IT) systems. This situation results from the intensive development of the IT market. The consumerization of IT and competition among technology producers and vendors hinder users from making appropriate decisions about which IT solutions to apply. IT consumerization concerns the tools developed for the consumer, specifically the individual IT end user (Thatte et al. 2012). Usually, a business organization’s top managers select certain technologies and invest in their implementation, deployment, and maintenance, while other technological solutions, almost equally useful, price-comparable, and applicable are not recommended to internal users. In this study, the term “Shadow Information Technology (SIT)” refers to IT that is not officially purchased, supported by the business organization’s IT center, recommended, or authorized by top management, but is still applied by internal end users. According to Kopper et al. (2020), SIT covers all software, including cloud computing solutions, hardware, and IT services developed and used autonomously by end users. Kerr et al. (2007) argue that SITs are decentralized solutions, such as spreadsheets, database solutions, cloud services, peripheral devices, and even legacy systems that are not included in IT center service management activities. The SIT systems’ development eventually is to circumvent the currently recommended IT systems. These systems create many opportunities for business organizations, which are visible and identifiable by managers and IT staff; they support task realization and goal achievement in business communication, enduser data processing, video conferencing, and security support (Furstenau et al. 2021). Shadow IT systems are acceptable because end-users need IT solutions that *Corresponding author: [email protected]

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are aligned to their business tasks, locally available, simple, and volatile (Kopper et al. 2020). The IT systems are perceived as suitable if they are aligned with local requirements, responsive to changing users’ needs, easy to learn, and comfortable to use. The objective of this study is to (1) investigate the phenomenon of SIT, its background and the effects of its usage, and (2) analyze the acceptance of SIT among university students.

SIT Literature Review Mostly, IT systems supporting business processes as well as applied for education are provided by the IT center at an organization. However, business users are able to autonomously implement IT solutions, which are neither on the list of those recommended by top management nor are maintained by the IT center (Huber et al. 2018). Individuals are looking for IT solutions that ensure the same functionalities and ease of use as the tools authorized by the IT center. Haag et al. (2017) agree that end user is typically expected to use the IT system provided by their organization. However, they have noticed that the “Bring-Your-Own” solution is gaining popularity and is being supported by companies as a cost-reducing approach. This solution covers Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD), Bring-Your-Own-Application (BYOA), and Bring-Your-Own-Cloud (BYOC) concepts. Some business organizations have already formulated the policy of the Bring-Your-Own-Information Technology (BYO-IT) concept, while others silently allow for the autonomous exploitation of IT systems. Some companies perceive that the application of BYO-IT permits them to overcome the noticed obstacles and perform everyday tasks successfully and efficiently. The adoption of end-user applications, software tools, and devices by a business unit is associated with the need to enhance innovation capabilities to increase the efficiency and satisfaction of end users (Ortbach et al. 2013). The use of technologies from private-access IT repositories for business or education purposes is an individualization of end-user professional behavior. Beyond that, consumerization behavior may result from the influence of coworkers, colleagues, or even external stakeholders, who force individuals to use specific software, such as video conferencing. The usage of SIT presents a paradoxical situation. On the one hand, it is a voluntary action, which may violate organizational norms. On the other hand, it may improve job performance and ensure the continuity of communication and data processing. In cases where a business unit authorizes one system, other hidden SIT solutions may exist. The SIT systems aim at various business purposes and belong to various classes of software, such as: • Business Intelligence tools for managerial decision-making, e.g., Tableau, Microsoft Power BI, SAS Business Intelligence, QlikSense, Zoho Analytics, and IBM Cognos Analytics. • Project Management tools such as ClickUp, Wrike, Asana, Trello, Workzone, Teamwork, and Podio.

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• Collaboration platforms for business components’ integration, such as Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Dropbox, Jira, and Confluence (Rauv 2021). • Video Conferencing Platforms, such as Webex, Zoom, Skype, FreeConference, Slack Video Calls, and Facebook Live. • Firewall Protection software, such as McAfee, Bitdefender, Norton by Symantec, Avast, and Kaspersky. • Web design software, such as Wix, Web.com, Adobe Dreamweaver, GIMP, and WordPress. Loose et al. (2013) argue that consumerization of IT means the situation when employees use the same devices, applications, and IT services in a business environment as they use for their private purposes. The COVID-19 lockdown encouraged or even forced end users to such behavior. They had to use private devices for remote work. IT consumerization is said to be a reverse innovation, which means that IT systems are provided by end users rather than bought by the organization board in a top-down approach (Ortbach et al. 2013; Klesel et al. 2019). According to Huber et al. (2016), SIT systems may include not only heterogeneous infrastructure elements but also legacy systems, which are no longer under the control of the IT center but are still applied by the end users. The literature survey, included in this study, covers the search in the following databases: Scopus, ScienceDirect, SAGE Journals, IEEE Xplore, and Association of Information Systems eLibrary (AIS eLib). The survey was conducted to answer the following research questions (RQs), formulated by the authors:

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RQ1: What is the impact of the SIT systems on end users’ job performance? RQ2: Can the SIT systems facilitate knowledge sharing in organizations? RQ3: What drives users to deploy the SIT systems? RQ4: What is the social influence on SIT usage? RQ5: What is the risk of SIT implementation and usage?

Application of the search phrase “SIT” identified 35 papers in those five repositories. The authors emphasize that SIT implementation promotes the creation of flexible, innovative solutions and self-reinforcing effects (Huber et al. 2018). Steinhueser et al. (2017) highlight the benefits of SIT, such as enhanced employee responsiveness, accelerated decision-making, faster resolution of problems, and increased employee productivity. They argue that usage of SIT allows for knowledge acquisition, easier communication, email exchange, information sharing, and individual competencies development. SIT usage is accepted as a rule-breaking behavior, which is neither injurious nor unfair. The SIT usage is a reaction to perceived situational constraints, and as such is oriented toward improving work performance (Coskun and Grabowski 2004). Knowledge sharing and internal communication through the usage of WhatsApp or Skype are mostly important in informal and decentralized organizations (Mallmann et al. 2018; Jarrahi et al. 2021). Györy et al. (2012) found that SIT solutions’ exploitation is not only a result of centralization policies and limitation of end users’ software investment, but it may result from the inability and incompetency of the organization’s IT center to fulfill IT needs. Rakovic et al. (2020) argue that the emergence of portable devices and

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cloud technologies, such as the Software as a Service (SaaS) model for software distribution and subscription-based software, makes SIT more pervasive. According to them, end users do not have malicious intentions in SIT usage, but they want to improve their work performance. Klotz et al. (2019) have specified the number of SIT drivers, which include: 1. Lack of business-IT alignment (BITA) while using software recommended by the IT center; 2. Lack of competencies and business knowledge by IT personnel; 3. Changing user requirements; 4. Lack of IT support for business processes; 5. Malfunctioning of authorized IT solutions; 6. Errors in software installations; 7. IT center’s slowness and lack of agility, creativity, and innovativeness; 8. Lower costs of SIT in comparison with the costs of solutions developed by the IT center; 9. Perception of productivity gain; 10. Increase in innovativeness, agility, and flexibility; 11. User satisfaction improvement; 12. Collaboration enhancement. Haag et al. (2015) argue that SIT users are intrinsically motivated, and they use it because of personal beliefs and preferences. The usage of SIT solutions allows end users to be resistant to crises and breakdowns. Therefore, users are robust, agile, and resilient to work stress (Kopper and Westner 2016). The SIT systems can be used by individuals for individual tasks as well as by groups of people for collective work. Mallmann et al. (2018) have discovered that end users are strongly influenced by their colleagues to use SIT, and the social influence is based on communication and social interactions. They defined social influence as a change of thoughts, feelings, attitudes, or behaviors of a user that results from interaction with other internal or external stakeholders. Hence, social impact is the degree to which a user perceives that authoritative people believe and use the SIT systems (Mallmann et al. 2019). While IT centers currently have less influence on the choice of technology applied by end users to perform their work (Mallmann et al. 2019), the adoption of SIT systems increases the flexibility and innovativeness of business units. However, it is important to note that SIT hinders the transparency of applications, increases enterprise architecture complexity, and complicates IT governance (Huber et al. 2017). As SIT systems are not maintained by the organizational IT center, end users must be responsible for SIT systems and SIT service governance. According to Abbas and Alghail (2021), SIT usage may lead to security problems i.e., loss of organizational data privacy because of the usage of Dropbox, Google Drive, or WhatsApp. Business organizations do not have implemented principles to control the SIT systems’ exploitation, allocation of task responsibilities, or segregation of duties. Chua et al. (2014) have reported such problems with SIT usage as the unreliability of processed data, difficulty with usage, and lack of coordination. Application of SIT systems guarantees neither that accurate data will be stored in a centralized

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database nor that appropriate information will be used for business decision-making. Furstenau et al. (2017) have identified the risks of SIT deployment, including (1) reliance on a single person who knows the technology, (2) poor code quality of SIT applications, (3) poor design of open-source solutions, (4) inadequate vendor-related issues, (5) lack of mutual understanding of vendor and end users, and (6) lack of business knowledge by IT personnel. Moreover, Klotz and Kopper (2019) have noticed security risks, lack of data privacy control, data inconsistencies, architecture complexity and insufficiency, loss of synergy in collaborative work, and lack of continuity of data processing.

SIT at Universities The use of SIT systems at universities may offer an interesting context to support individual learning. The SIT solutions change communication and interactions among students and teachers. At universities, the SIT systems offer innovations, flexible resource configuration, economies of scale, and decentralized management of IT, while social networks enable building relationships and posting information and photos. However, there are also challenges such as downtime, breakdowns, vulnerability to attack, limited access to software documentation, lack of IT professional support, and threats to security and privacy, which may discourage users from applying the SIT systems. This study poses an evaluation of university students’ acceptance of SIT software. The literature survey revealed that the research primarily focused on the acceptance of SIT among employees within business organizations. However, in this study, we want to emphasize the opinions of prospective customers of IT, namely students, who are users as well as potential clients and make decisions on whether to “use or not to use” SIT. There are many papers on technology acceptance models and methods, such as the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (Davis 1985), the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) (Venkatesh and Davis 2003), Diffusion of Innovation Model (DIM), the Status Quo Bias (SQB) theory (Samuelson and Zeckhauser 1988). The great fundamental inspiration to evaluate technology acceptance was provided by Davis in 1985. In his model, the design features represent alternative constructs, which might have an impact on user motivation. Further, user motivation covers cognitive response and affective response. According to Davis (1985), affective response, specifically the attitude Toward Using (ATT), is a function of two variables: Perceived Usefulness (PU) and Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU). Furthermore, Davis suggests that PEOU has an impact on PU. Followers of Davis’s approach in their models have preserved the user motivation constructs, but they perceived outstanding opportunities to include various design features. Even if other researchers applied the same fundamental constructs, such as PU, PEOU, and ATT, their interpretations of these variables are different and different observable variables, namely indicators, are included (Hewavitharana et al. 2021; Masril et al. 2021; Yaakop et al. 2020; Ronyastra et al. 2019; Indahwati Darsono 2005). In general, the TAM theory was proposed to explore the end-user acceptance of technologies, information systems, or services based on the social psychology

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perspective. This study focuses on the acceptance of shadow IT by a specific group of end users: university students. Therefore, in addition to the TAM fundamental constructs, such as PU, PEOU, and ATT, some additional constructs have been suggested as design features. Wu et al. (2022) proposed a research framework that integrated three domains: cognitive, motivational, and psychomotor, in the context of implementing Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math (STEAM) activities. The objective of their study was to explore the relationships between the learning domains and learning intention. Therefore, they proposed the following variables as additional constructs, namely perceived enjoyment, learning attitude, learning intention, mental effort, mental load, attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction. Likewise, Gunthner (2022), in his work on the acceptance of advanced driver assistance systems, considered not only PU, PEOU, and the intention to use, but also included the following exogenous variables: subjective norm, trust in technology, personal innovativeness, and life event. Similarly, Molitor and Renkema (2022) included in their model constructs such as trust, social support, performance expectancy, and effort expectancy. Alqahtani et al. (2022) argue that such constructs as system quality, quality of life, and service quality may have an impact on the PU and PEOU of the e-learning system. Also, Capasa et al. (2022) have included in the TAM model such latent variables as the subjective norm, output quality, perceived enjoyment, and experience. The quality constructs, including information quality, system quality, and service quality, have been found in the TAM model provided by Al-Adwan et al. (2021). Al-Ashmori et al. (2022) assume that PU and PEOU are determined by security, compatibility, and complexity. Jimenez et al. (2021) modified the TAM model and expanded the set of latent variables by including anxiety (AN), experience, facilitating conditions, individual innovativeness, self-efficacy, and social norms. Jalil et al. (2022) have included facilitating conditions as the determinant of the Behavioral Intention (BI) constructs. The facilitating conditions are defined as the confidence of a user that an organizational and technological structure can make the IT system use easier. Saprikis et al. (2018) propose adding such external variables as skillfulness, anxiety, and innovativeness. Also, Perumal et al. (2022) expanded the TAM model by including the construct of perceived risk. Perceived risk refers to the feeling of uncertainty, discomfort, and anxiety, which discourages users from applying IT systems. Liu et al. (2020) presented wearable devices acceptance model, in which they included the social support construct. They assumed that support was provided by colleagues, friends, and family members, rather than by IT professionals. Although Davis (1985) considered the TAM as a normalized model that enabled tracking of the relationships between latent variables, such as user perception, attitude, and intention, other researchers apply the TAM approach not only for the evaluation of acceptance of technology but also for the assessment of technologysupported services like e-learning and e-healthcare (Kruszyńska-Fischbach et al. 2022; Schretzlmaier et al. 2022). This study covers a certain extension of TAM, and the proposed model includes latent variables, which are considered to have an impact on PU, PEOU, and ATT. The proposed variables i.e., constructs, are defined as follows: • PU determines the individual beliefs that SIT systems help students learn better

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and achieve better learning results. It is the degree to which students believe that their successes will be improved by the use of SIT systems (Davis 1989). PEOU means the students’ belief that using the SIT systems would be free of effort (Davis 1989). Students are willing to choose systems that do not need considerable time and effort to conduct the tasks. ATT reveals whether students feel that SIT systems are favorable or unfavorable. BI is how students perceive the probability of their engagement in certain behavior. Anxiety (AN) is the degree to which a student feels unpleasant when using technology. Anxiety is determined by students’ competencies (Molitor and Renkema 2022). Personal Innovativeness (PI) means the students’ interest and enthusiasm to try out new technology voluntarily and apply it earlier than other colleagues (Gunthner 2022). Social Influence (SI) is the degree to which a student perceives the influence coming from university colleagues, friends, informal communities, or teachers (Zhonggen and Xiaozhi 2019). Social Influence may include social support, as through it colleagues may encourage to use the SIT systems. System quality (SQ) means perceived responsiveness, stability, and clarity of the SIT system construction, as well as its accuracy and efficiency (Jimenez et al. 2021). Boakye et al. (2014) argue that SQ concerns its excellence, beauty, comfortability, and compatibility with other SIT systems.

SIT Acceptance Model Estimation In general, TAM models are estimated through the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), which is an approach for testing the hypotheses on the relation among observable and latent variables (Sabi et al. 2016). In this study, structural equation modeling is realized through Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), which represents a composite-based SEM method (Hair et al. 2017). The survey respondents were students of the University of Economics in Katowice (Poland), which is the authors’ affiliation. The questionnaire was distributed among the first-year students of bachelor level of the degree “Informatics and Econometrics.” Due to the direction of this study program, the students are using many more IT solutions than, for instance, the students of “management” or “logistics” at the same university. The authors obtained 227 completed questionnaires. The students were asked to express their degree of agreement or disagreement with the statements (Table 1) by marking the answers on the seven-grade Likert scale, taking into account the following meanings: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Absolutely disagree Disagree Rather disagree Irrelevant Rather agree Agree Definitely agree.

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Table 1 contains the items included in the survey and presents a list of questions with acronyms and a set of latent variables. The last column in Table 1 includes the average (mean) values of this research indicator. Table 1. Items included in the survey Latent Variables Items PU PU1 Using the SIT systems improves my learning performance PU2 Using the SIT systems enriches my knowledge and skills PU3 Using the SIT systems enables me to accomplish tasks more quickly PU4 The SIT systems exploitation is cheaper than the usage of authorized systems PEOU PEOU1 I intuitively understand how to operate the SIT systems PEOU2 It is easy to learn how to use the SIT systems PEOU3 I find the SIT systems to be flexible to interact PEOU4 I find it easy to get the SIT systems to do what I want them to do

Mean 4.758 4.974 4.520 4.211 4.881 4.872 4.885 4.925

ATT

ATT1 ATT2 ATT3

I have a positive attitude toward various SIT systems Various SIT systems make my work more interesting I encourage others to implement various SIT systems

5.163 4.612 3.815

BI

BI1 BI2 BI3

I feel positive about using the SIT systems I would like to learn the SIT systems The usage of SIT systems is important during my studies at the university I will continue to use the SIT systems after my studies at the university The SIT systems are technically reliable My personal information might be inappropriately shared while using the SIT systems I hesitate to use various SIT systems for fear of making mistakes

4.872 4.934 4.903

Usage of SIT systems brings more learning opportunities at university Students have enough knowledge to install the SIT systems I like to experiment with new IT systems I am regularly looking for new IT products

5.079

My colleagues use other technologies than those recommended by teachers Teachers understand the benefits of using the SIT systems in the education process I am free to use any SIT systems at the university

4.546

The level of SIT systems quality is high The SIT systems providers ensure proper online assistance and explanations The usage of SIT systems provides me with opportunities to constantly participate in classes

4.780 4.705

BI4 AN

AN1 AN2 AN3

PI

PI1 PI2 PI3 PI4

SI

SI1 SI2 SI3

SQ

SQ1 SQ2 SQ3

5.194 4.643 4.018 3.145

5.211 4.537 3.410

4.736 4.797

4.722

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Initially, we have proposed the following hypotheses about students’ acceptance of shadow IT:

• • • • • • • • • • •

H1: AN impacts on PEOU H2: AN impacts on PU H3: PEOU impacts on BI H4: PEOU impacts on Perceived Usability (PU) H5: PI has an impact on PU H6: PI has an impact on PEOU H7: PU has a positive impact on the Attitude (ATT) H8: SI influences PU H9: SI influences PEOU H10: SQ influences PEOU H11: SQ influences PU

The preliminary conceptual model is presented in Figure 1. The specified hypotheses are presented on the links (represented by arrows) between the constructs.

Figure 1. The preliminary conceptual model

SmartPLS3 was used to calculate the model (Ringle et al. 2014). In the first run, the model was calculated with the PLS algorithm. For the preliminary as well as for the final conceptual model, the number of iterations was set to 1,000 and the stop criterion to 10^-X with selected 7. Then both models were calculated with the Bootstrap algorithm in which the number of samples was set to 5,000 for the full version with bias-corrected and accelerated in two-tailed distribution. The significance level was equal to 0.05.

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Empirical Approaches to Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability

The reliability of the variables was tested using Cronbach’s Alpha and Composite Reliability (CR). The results for reliability and validity for the overall sample are included in Table 2. All the Cronbach’s Alpha and CR values are expected to be higher than 0.700 (Hair et al. 2017). The Average Variance Extracted (AVE) and CR values are to be higher or close to 0.500 and 0.700, respectively, which confirms convergent validity. According to Hair et al. (2017), CR>0.7 and 0.6 indicates a lack of internal consistency, and CR>0.95 is not desirable. A higher value of Cronbach’s Alpha is a better value of reliability. Therefore, some constructs have been removed from the preliminary model since Cronbach’s Alpha was below 0.70. However, Nunally and Bernstein (1994) argue that all Cronbach’s Alpha and CR values are recommended to be higher than 0.600. According to Hair et al. (2021), reliability values (e.g., values of measures such as Cronbach’s Alpha, reliability coefficient rho_A, and composite Table 2. Construct reliability and validity: Preliminary model Construct

Cronbach’s Alpha

rho_A

Composite Reliability

AVE

Item

Outer Loadings

AN

0.105

-0.029

0.039

0.349

AN1 AN2 AN3

0.874 -0.067 -0.527

ATT

0.724

0.729

0.844

0.643

ATT1 ATT2 ATT3

0.794 0.824 0.787

BI

0.739

0.764

0.834

0.558

BI1 BI2 BI3 BI4

0.845 0.692 0.711 0.729

PEOU

0.769

0.789

0.850

0.588

PEOU1 PEOU2 PEOU3 PEOU4

0.722 0.753 0.853 0.733

PI

0.556

0.502

0.709

0.387

PI1 PI2 PI3 PI4

0.649 0.748 0.619 0.429

PU

0.704

0.756

0.818

0.538

PU1 PU2 PU3 PU4

0.866 0.792 0.722 0.504

SI

0.436

0.425

0.726

0.469

SI1 SI2 SI3

0.650 0.710 0.692

SQ

0.655

0.663

0.811

0.588

SQ1 SQ2 SQ3

0.789 0.736 0.774

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reliability rho_C) of 0.60 to 0.70 are acceptable in exploratory research, while values between 0.70 and 0.90 are regarded as satisfactory. The preliminary conceptual model as unreliable has been changed, and Figure 2 includes the final conceptual model covering the following hypotheses:

• • • • • • •

H1: PEOU impacts on BI H2: PEOU impacts on PU H3: PI has an impact on PEOU H4: PI has an impact on PU H5: PU has a positive impact on the ATT H6: SQ influences PEOU H7: SQ influences PU

Figure 2. The final conceptual model

Table 3 covers metrics of Construct Reliability and Validity as well as the Outer Loadings values. For this model, Cronbach’s Alpha and rho_A measures are above 0.6. Beyond verification of Construct Reliability and Validity in Table 4 the Discriminant Validity covers values for Fornell-Larcker Criterion to present that all the constructs differ significantly. According to Hair et al. (2017), indicators (i.e., observable variables) with outer loadings between 0.40 and 0.70 “should be considered for removal from the scale only when deleting the indicator leads to an increase in the composite reliability above the suggested threshold value.” In this study, the removal of the BI2 indicator does not improve the reliability and validity of this model. Indicators with outer loadings above 0.7 should be retained in the construct. Hair et al. (2017) argue

222

Empirical Approaches to Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability Table 3. Construct reliability and validity: Final model

Construct

Cronbach’s Alpha

rho_A

Composite Reliability

AVE

Item

Outer Loadings

ATT

0.724

0.730

0.843

0.642

ATT1 ATT2 ATT3

0.798 0.822 0.784

BI

0.739

0.763

0.834

0.558

BI1 BI2 BI3 BI4

0.845 0.694 0.712 0.728

PEOU

0.769

0.796

0.850

0.587

PEOU1 PEOU2 PEOU3 PEOU4

0.715 0.746 0.859 0.737

PI

0.704

0.844

0.863

0.761

PI3 PI4

0.937 0.803

PU

0.739

0.749

0.852

0.659

PU1 PU2 PU3

0.879 0.806 0.744

SQ

0.655

0.663

0.811

0.588

SQ1 SQ2 SQ3

0.794 0.737 0.769

Table 4. Fornell-Larcker criterion ATT

BI

PEOU

PI

PU

ATT

0.801

BI

0.756

0.747

PEOU

0.506

0.606

0.766

PI

0.306

0.300

0.099

0.872

PU

0.596

0.639

0.378

0.218

0.812

SQ

0.440

0.469

0.461

0.220

0.278

SQ

0.767

that AVE is a common measure to establish convergent validity. If the AVE is 0.5 or higher, this means that the construct explains more than half of the variance of its indicators. Figure 3 presents the PLS algorithm estimated model. Path Coefficients and R2 constructs are included in Table 5. The goodness of the model is conditioned by the strength of each structural path determined by the R2 value for the dependent variable: the value for R2 should be equal to or more than 0.1 (Falk and Miller 1992). The results in Table 5 show that all R2 values are more than 0.1. The PEOU construct has a moderate impact on the BI construct, the PU variable has a moderate impact on the ATT variable, and the SQ construct has a moderate impact on the PEOU construct. The other influences are

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Figure 3. The final model with estimated coefficients Table 5. PLS algorithm R 2 and Path Coefficients R2 ATT

0.356

BI

0.367

PEOU

0.213

ATT

SQ

0.183

PEOU

0.606

PI PU

BI

PI

PU

SQ

0.318 -0.002

0.165

0.462

0.095

0.596

weak. Table 6 covers the Bootstrapping Path Coefficients values for the final model as well as the decisions on the acceptance or rejection of proposed hypotheses. The results of the tests indicate that the proposed constructs (e.g., SQ, PI, PEOU, and PU) have a moderate impact on the intention of students (expressed as BI and ATT) to use the SIT systems. If a P value is below a certain threshold, then the corresponding hypothesis is assumed to be supported. The threshold is usually 0.05 (Kock 2014). Therefore, in this research, hypotheses H1, H2, H4, H5, and H6 are supported, but hypothesis H3 and H7 are rejected. This means that (1) PEOU impacts BI and PU; (2) PI has no impact on PEOU, but impacts PU; (3) PU has a positive impact on the attitude; (4) SQ influences PEOU, yet does not influence PU.

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Empirical Approaches to Emerging ICT Adoption for Sustainability Table 6. Bootstrapping path coefficients for final model

Hypothesis Hypothesis Original Sample Standard T-Statistics P Decision No. (Direction) Sample Mean Deviation Values H1

PEOU->BI

0.606

0.611

0.044

13.799

0.000 Accepted

H2

PEOU->PU

0.318

0.321

0.078

4.101

0.000 Accepted

H3

PI->PEOU

-0.002

0.003

0.067

0.034

0.973 Rejected

H4

PI->PU

0.165

0.169

0.60

2.749

0.006 Accepted

H5

PU->ATT

0.596

0.602

0.049

12.133

0.000 Accepted

H6

SQ->PEOU

0.462

0.466

0.062

7.436

0.000 Accepted

H7

SQ->PU

0.095

0.098

0.080

1.194

0.233 Rejected

Conclusions Application of various IT systems is recommended by software companies and IT vendors. A variety of market offers creates the need of making decisions on what to choose and implement and which offers are to be canceled. So far, that problem was the subject of research realized at business units. In this study, the attitude of university students toward SIT systems is presented. In general, students rather agree with the statements specified in the questionnaire. Although SIT and IT vendors’ innovations create many opportunities to learn and to easily change software systems, students do not reveal a great involvement in the SIT systems’ application for their educational or private purposes. The contribution of this work is threefold. First, it presents an extensive literature review on SIT, which enabled an understanding of the SIT phenomenon itself, its influence on end users and organizations, its social impact, as well as risks connected with SIT usage. Second, the study covers the problem of university students using ST, a topic that was not sufficiently researched previously. It provides an understanding of students’ attitudes toward the IT solutions suggested by their university and, in comparison, toward the shadow IT they use. Third, the analysis of SIT characteristics allows so highlight the importance of shadow IT in the process of maintaining sustainable development of organizations and higher education institutions, where the end users of IT and SIT (employees, students, as well as teachers) need to stay resilient to stress and all kinds of organizational and environmental changes. This study also has some limitations. Firstly, it was narrowed to students at just one university. The authors realize that there exists a probability of obtaining different results with a bigger research sample. Secondly, there are some non-observable factors influencing the students’ attitude, i.e., teacher competencies, SIT system promotion by IT producers, and application of various SIT software by business units that are potential employers of university graduates. These factors were not taken into consideration in this survey; however, they might have a rather significant influence on the results.

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The results of the SEM analysis of the relations of variables of the TAM can be applied to improve student’s learning process and to understand their attitude and behavior toward applied IT solutions. In the teaching process, usefulness and ease should be strongly emphasized as determinants of students’ attitudes. Although the current research has shown a rather low interest of students to use SIT, the authors see a possibility for future research in (1) increasing the sample for the research (overcoming the limitation of this study), and, first of all, in (2) preparing an extended questionnaire to obtain specific comments from students as for the advantages and disadvantages of SIT application.

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CHAPTER

13

The Importance of Traditional and New Media in Encouraging Young Consumers’ Sustainable Behavior Agata Balińska1*, Ewa Jaska1 and Agnieszka Werenowska2 1

2

Warsaw University of Life Sciences (WULS), Institute of Economics and Finance; [email protected]; [email protected] Warsaw University of Life Sciences (WULS), Management Institute; [email protected]

Introduction Sustainable development refers to economic development conducted without depletion of natural resources. Consequently, sustainable development is the ability to maintain equal social and environmental factors in activities that meet the present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (Strange and Bayley 2008; Matuszewska-Pierzynka 2021; Stanek-Kowalczyk 2021; Florek-Paszkowska et al. 2021). The promotion of sustainable consumption of goods and services is necessary to reduce the negative impact on the climate. This is possible through various mediabased communication platforms and channels. However, the role of the media in encouraging environmentally sustainable behavior has not been sufficiently addressed in scientific publications. To date, research studies focus more often on the role of media as sources of information on the environment. Selected pro-environmental behaviors are analyzed in the context of media-based sources of information or the focus is on the use of a specific medium to popularize and stimulate broadly understood sustainable behavior. The current study combines these two research designs by investigating a broad panel of communication channels and a relatively wide spectrum of pro-environmental behaviors. The scope of media-based sources of information and communication techniques has been significantly expanded by the emergence of social media. Social networking sites have become an integral part of the lives of contemporary Internet users, not only by mediating interpersonal relationships in a new way but also influencing purchase *Corresponding author: [email protected]

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decisions and shaping sustainable behavior. Media-based communication designed to meet audience expectations is essential for creating a shared understanding of sustainable development and public commitment to it. Therefore, the aim of the conducted research was to determine the role of traditional and new media in encouraging environmentally sustainable behaviors among young consumers. With this in mind, the following research questions were formulated: • Which of their own environmentally sustainable behaviors do the respondents rate the highest? • Which media sources of information are most often used in the context of sustainable activities? • Is there a difference in the use of the most popular media sources depending on the differentiating variables, such as gender, place of residence, and household income per capita? • Is there a difference between the use of individual sources of information and self-reported pro-environmental behavior?

Usability of Media Sources of Information Nowadays, mass media provide information, education, advertisements, and even warnings. Mass media do not only describe but also create reality by influencing individual recipients’ behavior and performing specific functions in social groups, which could be used to effectively encourage sustainable behavior. Media deliver information about the surrounding world and participate in building the knowledge resources of their users. The scope of use of media-based sources of information and communication techniques has significantly expanded with the emergence of social media. In the new media, the users are not just passive recipients of messages but active content creators. Users of new social media participate in creating information and exchanging opinions, thus influencing the attitudes and behaviors, including the sustainable ones, of other Internet users. The media-based message is most effective and useful when it triggers feedback from the recipient (Miller et al. 2016; Onete et al. 2013). It is worth noting that the proportion of Internet users in the population of Poland is constantly increasing. In 2021, Internet users accounted for 84.5% of all Poles, and at the beginning of 2022, it was already 87%. In the same period, the proportion of social media users in the population of Poland increased from 68.5% to 72%. There are 27 million Poles on social media, and the number of users of social networking sites increased by 1.3 million over one year (Digital 2022). However, in the conditions of digital convergence and the abundance of Internet content, attention becomes a scarce commodity, and lack of audience interest reduces the effectiveness of a given medium. Therefore, mass communicators should take into account the criterion of topicality and symmetry with audience expectations regarding specific categories of content. According to the assumptions of the utility theory, consumers make decisions that maximize their satisfaction to the greatest extent. Social media users are exactly such consumers, as they tend to focus on

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content that meets their needs to the greatest extent, and it could be knowledge about sustainable behavior. This is confirmed by the research of Baker et al. (2021), Balińska and Jaska (2022).

Promoting Sustainable Behavior in the Media The popularity of social media creates the potential to disseminate pro-environmental information and encourage conscious sustainable behavior. The availability of social media directly supports the promotion of pro-environmental behavior among young people (Himel et al. 2016; Mazurek et al. 2019). The impact of the digital age on communication and the acceleration of the global pace of consumption and production, which deplete natural resources, are discussed by Calisto (2021). The study emphasizes that individuals are more aware of the negative environmental impact of their consumption and they are changing the way they use and dispose of products, but their buying habits remain largely unchanged. On the other hand, Chai et al. (2022) investigated the role of social media usage in affecting consumers’ decisions regarding food waste prevention. According to the study findings, social media usage has a significant influence on attitudes and injunctive norms. The injunctive norms play an important role in creating the intention to reduce food waste, which in turn is a significant predictor of food waste prevention behavior. Interestingly, the same study showed that a negative attitude toward food waste behavior does not translate into the intention to engage in food waste prevention behavior. Yakubu et al. (2022), in turn, published a very interesting paper exploring the research question of how media could facilitate the effect of sustainable entrepreneurship on consumer purchase behavior, based on evidence from the food industry in Nigeria. “Access to the Internet” ranked the highest among the determinants of sustainable entrepreneurship development in the food industry. “The production process and the environment” ranked second, followed by “price satisfaction,” “brand quality,” “personal attributes of customer care,” and “packaging quality.” According to the researchers, more attention should be paid not only to the role of the media in the development of sustainable entrepreneurship but also to the impacts of media as a channel of achieving it by changing consumers’ consumption and purchase behaviors. The relationship between sustainable entrepreneurship and the media is very rarely discussed in the literature. The study by Giessen (2015) analyzed the conditions for media-based learning effectiveness and how it can contribute to the sustainable development of entrepreneurship. Gregori and Holzmann (2020) explored digital technologies embedded in sustainable business practices. This was company-level qualitative research focusing on business models embedding digital technologies to create socio-environmental value. Crecente et al. (2021) showed that the promotion of Sustainable Development Goals (set by the United Nations) by European institutions has contributed positively to the generation of new business opportunities and increased the rate of sustainable entrepreneurship.

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Transformations in the mass media environment facilitate accessibility and reach potential customers. The availability of social media is an important tool supporting the promotion of green entrepreneurship among young people (Himel et al. 2016; Mazurek et al. 2019). Hennig-Thurau et al. (2004) and Ismail (2017) believe that social media strongly influence the decision-making process of consumers, which in turn impacts their interactions with producers and marketers. An interesting study by Zhang et al. (2022), explored the flow of information regarding environmental aspects with regard to energy problems. Discussions in 12 focus groups involving the public and energy experts revealed that energy information flows from scientists to the public through both direct (e.g. roadshows and scientists’ blogs) and indirect channels (e.g. schools and new media). However, communication gaps remain between scientists and the public. On the one hand, the public often obtains information from personal experience and the media, but not directly from scientists. On the other hand, while the public highlighted the importance of mass and social media, only a few experts reported writing commentaries on the energy on news sites or making posts on social media. When analyzing the literature on the subject, it is also worth recalling the results of scientific research that connect the theory of the Big Five personality traits with social networks and environmental behavior in the context of sustainable development. According to the study by Salem and Alanadoly (2021), the three personality traits that impact social media activities the most include: extraversion, openness to experience, and agreeableness. The study also revealed that the active use of social media has a positive impact on the optimization of users’ eco-friendly behavior and an increase in users’ environmental concerns. The study by Barkela et al. (2021) examined how media reports on plastic pollution, with and without role models avoiding plastic, influence the attitudes and behavior of media users. The study revealed that neither media reports nor role models had a relevant impact on participants’ beliefs or behavior in the field of plastic consumption. Media companies are also responsible for the representation of reality included in the content they provide. An example would be two media companies in Germany, RTL and ProSieben Sat1, which deliver, among others, content addressing sustainable development. The results of the analyses by Voci (2022) (covering online articles and videos), indicated that most media sustainability-related content addresses food issues, followed by issues regarding resources and the environment, thus contributing to the achievement of some of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. These issues are primarily conveyed logically (76%), while the ethical (22%) and emotional (2%) appeals were rarely found in the analyzed messages. The presented research results demonstrate the inconclusive character of the existing body of work in this area and justify further in-depth analyses of media outlets’ role in creating sustainable behaviors. The presented literature review also showed insufficient scientific coverage of the media impact on sustainable behavior and a research gap regarding the relationship between gender, place of residence and income level, and sustainable behavior.

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Description of the Study The research process followed the stages presented in Table 1. Table 1. Research stages Step 1

Review of literature on environmentally and socially sustainable behaviors

Step 2

Identification of sources of information used by young consumers

Step 3

Setting research questions and objectives

Step 4

Designing the questionnaire

Step 5

Pilot study

Step 6

Pilot study data analysis and verification of the questionnaire design

Step 7

Main study – data collection

Step 8

Qualitative verification of the collected data

Step 9

Choosing statistical methods, data processing

Step 10

Interpretation of data

Source: Own research.

The research process planned in this way required the use of various methods of data collecting and analysis, which are described below. The current study involved desk research, which enabled the formulation of the assumptions for empirical research, including the selection of environmentally responsible behaviors and media-based sources used in the process of getting and verifying information. The empirical research involved a computer-assisted web interviewing (CAWI) technique. The survey questionnaire was prepared on the Google platform and consisted of filtering questions, alternative questions, multiple and single-choice questions, and Likert scale questions. The link to the survey questionnaire was distributed via online channels. Additionally, snowball sampling was used to reach more respondents (Johnson 2014). The existing study subjects were asked to recruit future subjects from among their acquaintances by posting the link to the survey on their social media profiles. The full-scale research was preceded by a pilot study, which contributed to the validation of the final research tool. The full-scale research was conducted in April and May 2021. The sampling was non-random. We used convenience sampling (Etikan 2016). The respondents had to meet only two criteria: they had to be between 18–35 years of age and they needed to use new media. The link to the survey was distributed via social media platforms, so only users got access to the survey. The age criterion was met through a filtering question in which respondents marked their age. A total of 840 respondents took part in the survey. After the initial verification of the questionnaires in terms of their completeness 823 questionnaires completed by people aged 18–35 were qualified for further analysis. Defining “young people” as the cohort aged 18–35 is consistent with the methodology applied by the Center for Public Opinion Research (CBOS). The arguments for carrying out research on this cohort were as follows:

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(i) They use both traditional and new media with ease. (ii) They either run their own household or prepare for it, therefore making independent consumer decisions. (iii) This consumer group’s pro-environmental behavior and the role of new media in supporting it are insufficiently recognized. The collected material was subjected to qualitative and quantitative analysis. Descriptive statistics measures (mean and median) as well as the Mann-Whitney Z test and the Kruskal-Wallis test were used in the analyses. Reliability analysis was performed using Cronbach’s alpha. The scale is considered reliable if Cronbach’s alpha coefficient is over 0.700 (Lavrakas 2008). In our case, it was 0.832.

Traditional and New Media in Promoting Sustainable Attitudes The study cohort included 60.6% of women. This phenomenon is typical of survey methods (Mulder and de Bruijne 2019). Apart from gender, the variables selected for verification included the place of residence and household income per capita. The largest group of respondents lived in cities with more than 500,000 residents (41.7%), then came the residents of rural areas (26.0%), cities with populations up to 50,000 (18.0%), and cities with populations of 50,000 to 500,000 (14.3%). Regarding the reported household income per capita, the distribution among participants was as follows: 31.5% of the participants declared income over PLN 3,000 (EUR 630), 31.1% indicated the range PLN 2,000–3,000 (EUR 420-630), 25.3% fell within the range of PLN 1,000–2,000 (EUR 210–420), and the smallest proportion of respondents, 12.1%, indicated the lowest amount i.e., up to PLN 1,000 (EUR 210). To address the research questions, the respondents were asked to rate their own environmentally responsible behaviors using a 5-point Likert scale (Table 2). Regardless of the differentiating variables, in the respondents’ view, they perform best in the area of waste sorting, which is an activity largely imposed by legal regulations. They also highly rated their behavior of using public transport instead of a car. The use of shared transport was assessed as the lowest, which can be explained by the insecurity caused by the COVID-19 epidemic at the time of the survey. Next, the participants were asked about the frequency of use of individual sources of information on sustainable activities (Table 3). Both traditional and new sources of information were included in the survey. The respondents most frequently got information from social media, online advertising as well as outdoor campaigns (traditional posters, billboards, and LED screens on public transport) typical of urban space. The never-used sources included the website of the Ministry of Climate and Environment, as well as local and national press. To address the next research question, it was verified whether there is a difference in the use of the most popular information sources among the respondents (more than half of the respondents described them as “always” or “often” used) depending on gender, place of residence and household income per capita. The analyzed sources

Specification Women Gender

Men City>500k

Place of residence

City 50k–500k City < 50k Rural areas