Sustainability: Are We All Talking About the Same Thing State-of-the-Art and Proposals for an Integrative Definition of Sustainability in Information Systems

DOI

10.2991/ict4s-14.2014.42How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Sustainability, Information Systems, ICT, Definition, Review.

Abstract

Degradation of the natural environment is presently attracting significant attention among the Information Systems (IS) academic community. Consequently, the subject of sustainability continues to gain a foothold in the mainstream of IS research. However, as the body of research grows, the exact meaning of sustainability is increasingly becoming a source of uncertainty. The absence of a clear definition of sustainability in the IS domain poses a challenge for operationalizing the concept and limits the methodological viability of research in the field. By means of a systematic literature review, this paper identifies problems related to diverging or even a complete absence of sustainability definitions in the relevant IS literature. The results reveal what constitutes a sound definition of sustainability as a characteristic of a stakeholder activity and a new perspective for Information Systems research on sustainability, in which an activity becomes a quantum of sustainability analysis. The paper discusses the broader implications for further research.

Copyright

© 2014, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Friedrich Chasin
PY  - 2014/08
DA  - 2014/08
TI  - Sustainability: Are We All Talking About the Same Thing State-of-the-Art and Proposals for an Integrative Definition of Sustainability in Information Systems
BT  - Proceedings of the 2014 conference ICT for Sustainability
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 342
EP  - 351
SN  - 2352-538X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/ict4s-14.2014.42
DO  - 10.2991/ict4s-14.2014.42
ID  - Chasin2014/08
ER  -