Technology adoption at the workplace : Optimal office utilization in the context of sustainability

Abstract: Nowadays, sustainability in general and energy-efficiency in specific have become very populardue to environmental issues which can be directly traced back to a wasteful lifestyle of currentgenerations. Therefore, the European Commission specified European Union-wide targets andpolicy objectives in order to achieve a cut in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by atleast 40% and at least 32,5% improvement in energy-efficiency until 2030 with an option toupward the values by 2023.The literature review of this study showed that former research mainly chose an overallperspective about systems which support people and organizations in living more sustainablywithout covering a specific topic and without elaborating on a concept for a specific use-case.Most of the studies examined technology in regard to a piece of hardware which is integratedinto an existing environment (e.g. household), where no continuous interaction of its users isnecessary. Furthermore, none of it addressed how an organization, along (and in tightcooperation) with its members, can become more sustainably by implementing a technology—where technology refers to an app (software)—which enables employees to live moresustainably at the workplace.In order to tangle the identified gap, the author of this study created a concept of an app whichcan optimize a utilization of office spaces. The aim of this app is to group colleagues togetherin offices according to their project, team or previous seating habits in order to avoidunnecessary heating, air-conditioning and lighting of unused rooms (e.g. pool offices,conference rooms). As an organization should not just create a guideline to which everyemployee must stick to, this study elaborates on possible prompts and constraints (e.g.employees which have concerns about privacy). To achieve that, a web-based survey wasconducted in Germany in order to evaluate the hypotheses emerged from the literature review.From this aim, the research question ‘Which elements prompt and constrain employees to adoptan app that addresses optimal office utilization?’ emerged.Notwithstanding the thoroughly conducted literature review and the emerged hypotheses, noneof the stated hypotheses could have been confirmed and verified.