Digital Eco-Innovation in UK Municipalities: an institutional perspective

Anthropogenic climate change threatens human society on a global scale. The scientific consensus is that greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) related to human activities are the cause. This paper argues that municipalities need to focus on eco-sustainability objectives if GHG are to be reduced, as cities are responsible of over 70% of such emissions. Our research explores and identifies ways in which municipalities institutionalise ecologically (eco-) sustainability practices through mechanisms that enable information processing and trigger the adoption and use of Green IS by addressing the problems of equivocality and uncertainty. Using mechanism-based institutional theory as a conceptual ‘lens’, our research reports the findings of two contrasting case studies of large municipalities in the United Kingdom. The mechanism-based explanations illustrate how structural or informational mechanisms operate to influence institutional change towards achieving eco-sustainability outcomes. We conclude that information-rich mechanisms enable Green IS-enabled grassroots-based initiatives that help municipalities to shape a societal transition to sustainability and address the problems of climate change.

Professor Ray Hackney is currently Director of Strategic Engagement,Chair in Business Systems and former Head of the Information Systems Evaluation research group within the Business School at Brunel University London, UK. He has contributed extensively to research in the field of information systems and management with publications in numerous national and international conferences and journals. In addition, he has taught and examined on a number of Doctoral and MBA programmes including Manchester Business School and the Open University. He also led the organising committee for the annual BIT and BITWorld Conference series and a member of the Strategic Management Society and Association of Information Systems. In recent years, Professor Hackney served on the Board of the UK Academy for Information Systems and was also the Vice President Research for IRMA (USA). He is currently and AE for a number of high level journals and a former case editor for IJIM. His research interests are the strategic management of information systems within a variety of organisational context, with an increasing speciality in government sectors and he has contributed to a number of EPSRC and European funded research projects. Professor Hackney is a former President of the Information Resource Management Association (IRMA) and served on the European Doctoral Association for Management & Business Administration (EDAMBA) Executive Committee.