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Although technologies spurred by the “Internet of things” are increasingly being introduced in homes, only a few studies have examined the adoption or diffusion of such household technologies. One particular area of interest in this context is electricity consumption, especially the introduction of smart metering technology (SMT) in households. Despite its growing prominence, SMT implementation has met with various challenges across the world, including limited adoption by consumers. Thus, this study empirically examines the antecedents of SMT adoption by potential consumers. Using a mixed-methods design, the study first unearths the SMT-specific antecedents, then develops a contextualized model by drawing on theories from motivational psychology and the antecedents identified earlier, and finally tests this model using a large-scale survey of German consumers. The results provide support for many of the hypotheses and highlight the importance of motivational factors and some household demographic, privacy, and innovation-related factors on consumers’ intention to adopt SMT.

Digitalization has permeated all aspects of human lives, economies, and societies. This transformation has been driven by the rapid growth in computing power, storage capabilities, and data transmission infrastructures. These changes have enabled innovations, such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence, smartphones, digitalized homes, (semi) autonomous vehicles, quantum computing, and more. Digitalization has further resulted in faster, more effective service delivery by many organizations. The phenomenon of digitalization relies on an increasingly finite supply of resources, such as crude oil, silicon, and energy. Over the past 150 years, humans have consumed as many natural resources as they have consumed in the past 20,000 years. In part, this increasing clip of consumption has been driven by digitalization, as novel, technology-based solutions, such as blockchain, supplant older, slower low-tech solutions, such as books and ledgers, to process data and create value. Digitalization's demand for resources may be leading us to an environmental abyss. Consider cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, whose electricity consumption is approximately equal to the energy needs of small nations such as Malaysia or Sweden. Such consumption evokes the question, is, \"is more digitalization really better, or given the harm to the planet, is this one context where less is more?\". In this paper, we develop a research agenda for understanding the full cost of digitalization and its impact on sustainability. We do so in three parts; first, we offer a crisp definition of sustainability; second, we offer a concise review of the digitalization and sustainability literature; and third, we offer suggestions for research that advances our understanding of how digitalization impacts sustainability.

Many firms use social media (SM) to solicit online investments. In this study, we examine the interaction between SM attributes and online-investment attributes to determine how this interaction shapes users’ investment decisions. Specifically, we investigate initial coin offerings (ICOs) as an application domain of distributed ledger technology for peer-to-peer investment. We use signaling theory to develop a context-specific explanation for how the interplay of persuasion signals found in SM and technology-enforced lockups shapes individuals’ ICO investment decisions. To evaluate this interplay, we conducted a 2 × 2 factorial experiment with 473 participants. The results show that when an investment does not require a technology-enforced lockup, persuasion signals encourage investments in ICOs; however, when an investment requires a technology-enforced lockup, persuasion signals do not affect investments in ICOs. Furthermore, our analyses suggest that combining a technology-enforced lockup and persuasion signals reduces the ICO’s plausibility. This is the first study to investigate how the willingness to invest in ICOs is influenced by the relationship between technology-enforced lockups and persuasion signals. The findings have practical implications for individuals attempting to make sound decisions on ICO investments, policymakers regulating online investments, and firms seeking to attract investors.

In response to the impact of the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic, various developers turned to smartphone-based contact tracing to address the challenges of manual tracing. Due to the presence of network effects, i.e., the effectiveness of contact tracing applications increases with the number of users, information technology standards were critical to the technology's success. The standardization efforts in Europe led to a variety of trade-offs concerning the choice of an appropriate technological architecture due to the contradictory tensions resulting from the dualism between the need for contact tracing data to contain the pandemic and the need for data minimization to preserve user privacy. Drawing predominantly on the software platform and standards literature, we conduct an interpretive case study to examine the emergence and consequences of this multi-layered decision situation. Our findings reveal how Google and Apple were able to limit the individual leeway of external developers, thereby effectively resolving the European standards war. Furthermore, we identify and discuss the various short-term and long-term trade-offs associated with the standardization of contact tracing applications and translate our findings into recommendations for policy makers with respect to future crisis situations. Specifically, we propose a strategy grounded in our data that enables responsible actors to make goal-oriented and rapid decisions under time constraints.

Although technologies spurred by the “Internet of things” are increasingly being introduced in homes, only a few studies have examined the adoption or diffusion of such household technologies. One particular area of interest in this context is electricity consumption, especially the introduction of smart metering technology (SMT) in households. Despite its growing prominence, SMT implementation has met with various challenges across the world, including limited adoption by consumers. Thus, this study empirically examines the antecedents of SMT adoption by potential consumers. Using a mixed-methods design, the study first unearths the SMT-specific antecedents, then develops a contextualized model by drawing on theories from motivational psychology and the antecedents identified earlier, and finally tests this model using a large-scale survey of German consumers. The results provide support for many of the hypotheses and highlight the importance of motivational factors and some household demographic, privacy, and innovation-related factors on consumers’ intention to adopt SMT.

The role and influence of information technology in firms’ business and value creation remains controversial. The question of how technology can drive service innovations is especially crucial in highly competitive and rapidly developing areas such as digital platforms but not well understood. This study investigates the role of information technology in service innovation in sharing economy organizations. These organizations are digital platforms that combine physical and digital service elements. Adopting a service-dominant logic perspective, we conduct an interpretive multiple-case study to gain a deeper understanding of the types of service innovation in this area and the different roles that IT can play in these initiatives. Our findings reveal different manifestations of service innovation and thereby help to identify previously unexplored interdependencies between the service ecosystem and value co-creation. We furthermore find that organizations’ choices regarding the role of IT are dependent on the level of heterogeneity and standardization of the mediated transactions. We derive four archetypes for the role of IT in service innovation that explain how and why sharing economy organizations exploit IT. We then translate our findings into practical guidelines for managers of digital platforms.

Today, highly standardized information technology (IT) resources such as storage and processing power are becoming available and affordable to all. Therefore, IT managers evermore focus on reducing the costs and risks that these resources entail rather than on the benefits or competitive edge they provide. A marketplace for cloud computing represents a promising alternative for obtaining standardized IT resources in a highly flexible and scalable manner. Based on a revelatory case study of a cloud market project, we show that uncertainties are prevalent in cloud markets and that the principal-agent theory is an adequate perspective to study and explain these uncertainties. By triangulating data from formal and informal interviews, documentations and project meetings, we develop a second-level contextual understanding of uncertainties in the relationships between market operator, cloud providers and users. Our analysis reveals that while cloud market operators have capabilities to mitigate uncertainties between cloud provider and user, they also cause new uncertainties from the cloud provider and user perspective. As an outcome, we present a framework that sheds light on the uncertainty trade-offs involved in the decision to adopt a cloud market by cloud providers and users.