Understanding sustainable technologies use: The role of empowerment and cultural dimensions

Abstract

Given today’s paradigm of environmental crises, studies on the role of technology for sustainable purposes are now more relevant than ever. Therefore, this work analyses sustainable technology use behaviours from a social perspective, evaluating the impact of empowerment and culture-specific dimensions: context and time perception. For that, a research model is created and tested with a sample of 400 responses using structural equation modelling. This study reveals a strong positive impact of empowerment on deep structure use and cognitive absorption. Additionally, time perception is found to be a positive moderator between empowerment and user behaviors. These findings are relevant for theory - exploring the explanatory power of empowerment in a sustainable context, as well as the importance of cultural dimensions in understanding user behaviors – and practice – better understanding strategies to increase sustainable technologies use.