International Accounting

Journal	Inf Syst Front (2013) 15:695–704 DOI 10.1007/s10796-013-9454-5
Title	Green Information Systems & Technologies - This Generation and Beyond: Introduction to the Special Issue
Year	2013
Research Method	Much of the academic work schools of business and management ofIS, especially in the most influential journals in this field, focus greatly on a social sciences and theory based approach to addressing issues.The question remains on whether GreenIS and ITshould also be only focused on traditional IS research paper paradigm of social science research.GreenIS and ITresearch, to be effective in the short and long-term, will need to break the mold to stimulate solution-based research. In our observation, the problem is that we needresearch that can take giant steps to solve global warming, climate change, and other pervasive environmental issues.It is not clear where and when these papers will occur.Incremental, baby steps can then fill in the gaps created by the giant steps.Unfortunately, forIS and ITresearch, and maybe academic work (serious, robust, theoretical) in general, it is very difficult to take these giant steps. IS research may have ‘missed the boat’ when it decided to become a social science rather than a solution science and settled on incremental influence.A clarion call is needed for solutions to solve this critical and ‘wicked’ problem of human influences on natural systems. Given the crises that are being faced, a practical question for our IS and IT community is whether theory can come after we focus on solving the problem, assuming we can. In our field’s brief history, much of the early work in IT (first) and IS (second) on environmental issues was in the technology driven area of study, for example with IEEE and itssymposia in the 1990s.Engineers and industry practitioners mostly drove this research.The core IS academic journals, until recently, have not focused on environmental sustainability.Can we join with industry researchers and practitioners to be able to focus on solutions?How do we convince ourselves, and even this journal, and this special issue that solution sciences are what is needed?Is theory and academic publication enough, working with engineers and applied IS researchers, and practitioners is needed. The lead time for academia and academic journals may be too long to influence practice, especially when a problem such as globally warming needs urgent attention. There is a question on whether IS academics and researchers care enough and need to be missionary in our push to get IS scholars and the IS community involved in solving the most important problem of our time.A basic question is whether academic researchers should be cold and critical, or caring, compassionate and driven to find solutions.This concern is not only true for our discipline, but all academic disciplines. We are unsure if what we provide here are giant steps or baby steps.Whether the work is traditional or solutions based.We will leave that up to the reader.The papers did undergo significant and rigorous review, as any journal would require.If the reader finds an article that can influence their organization, family member, friends, or community to rethink their behavior or adopt a certain practice, then share this information.If this research sparks the reader’s interest, become involved, do your own research, develop insights and spread the message, it is too important not to be heard by our research community and its stakeholde
Pokok Bahasan	Not only is there an issue of how IS can help organizational and cross-organizational practices, but the environmental implications of hardware, software,and databasesand their infrastructure and operations can be quite extensive. IT itself may cause substantial negative ecological footprints and need to be managed accordingly.For example a greater need for energy and materials may be required. While an average desktop personal computer and monitor requires ten times its weight in water, fossil fuels, and chemicals as material and resource inputs (e.g., implementing virtualization servers, improvement in cooling systems, recycling of hardware, e-wasting management, green procurement policy for software and hardware) (Sayeed and Gill, 2008). Large quantities of energy, materials, and chemicals are consumed during the production phase, not all of which will be contained in the final products. Environmental software to support green IS and IT management range from auditing and managing emissions to analyzing energy and minimizing waste. More recent aspects of software systems include the utilization of Life-Cycle-Analysis (LCA),which goes beyond the organizational boundaries.Design for environment (DfE) databases also plays a role, which may integrate supplier and vendor data and processes. The management of hardware, software and its usage is critical to organizational greening.Many additional examples exist concerning the roles and influence of Green IS and IT, some of these are now discussed as issues and research that might be completed in this area.They are not meant to be exhaustive and represent some of what we, the special issue guest editors, feel are important and emergent issues in GreenIS and ITissues.
Summary	This paper is the guest editorial for the special issue on Green Information Systems and Technologies. In this paper environmental sustainability issues relevant to industry, communities, and individuals are initially presented.Some background information on green IS and green IT and the latest practices are introduced to provide the reader with a more complete picture of the complexities involved in greening and sustainability activities.A portion of the editorial is devoted to the concern that the focus and debate on IS as a social science and not a solution science may actually dampen immediate and significant progress.Papers in the special issue are then overviewed and integrated.
Suggestion	This paper focuses on the development and application of formal quantitative model approach and focus on the many intangible and less direct benefits associated with green IS and IT investments. Using the theory of ecological modernization as a key driver for argument

International Accounting