The Digital Path to Sustainability: A Configurational Investigation

Firms are increasingly leveraging information technology (IT) not only to enhance productivity, but also to improve their environmental performance. In parallel, organizations have begun creating IT‑specific C-suite roles and assigning them responsibilities related to sustainability agendas.  Against this backdrop, this preliminary study empirically explores whether and how different configurations of IT use for sustainability, IT-specific executive roles, and their environmental responsibilities may jointly shape a firm’s environmental sustainability. We conduct a crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis to uncover multiple pathways leading to high environmental sustainability. To deepen and validate our interpretation of these preliminary configurational findings, we plan to complement the analysis with text analysis of firms’ reports. Taken together, our preliminary findings suggest that the IT–sustainability relationship is complex and configurational, offering an initial basis for future theory development and practitioner guidance on how digital resources and leadership structures may support environmental goals.