Developing Organizational Capabilities in SMEs: Enabling Environmentally Sustainable ICT

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have made significant contributions to business innovation and wealth generation for organisations, societies and nations. ICT have also made significant contributions to environmental degradation. Confronted by the necessity to respond to growing environmental concerns in society, regulatory imperatives and market pressure, many business leaders express uncertainty about how best to proceed. The challenges of environmental sustainability are particularly acute for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) due to their limited capabilities to initiate significant change without external assistance. With a track record of investigating diverse aspects of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) applications and practices in organizations, Information Systems (IS) researchers appear well placed to provide such assistance. Unfortunately, IS researchers have failed to engage with environmental sustainability of ICT as either a problem requiring resolution or as an opportunity to present innovative solutions.This paper aims to facilitate development of SME business practice in the environmental sustainability of ICT and promotion of an industry-relevant IS research agenda. Contributions are: identification and categorization of a diversity of literature sources to inform SMEs on the topic; proposal of a stages of development framework for building SME capabilities in ICT environmental sustainability based on current literature and a case study of leading SME practice; and proposal of an industry-relevant IS research agenda. Implications of the framework for SMEs and for IS research are discussed.