Towards a Procedural Model for Sustainable Information Systems Management

The increasing economical, ecological and social significance of information systems (IS) demands reorientation for IS management. Ever-growing energy consumption, waste streams, data amounts and performance expectations require management concepts that consider these forces. While concepts of corporate social responsibility or sustainability have been applied to other industries, IS is still lacking a theoretical and conceptional foundation. The purpose of this paper is to apply the concept of sustainability into the field of IS management. As a contribution to the ongoing discussion of “Green IT”, we provide a theoretical foundation and justification of sustainable IS management using the resource based view. Thereafter, we develop a sustainable IS management procedural model, that lines out the most important steps towards the implementation of sustainability within IS organizations. This model should provide IS managers, such as CIOs, with a framework for including sustainability in business operations.

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