SUSTAINABILITY TRANSPARENCY: SCOPE FOR DIGITAL SERVICES

Abstract

Transparency for sustainability in digital services represents an emergent challenge for organizations. In addition to the technological push to operationalize digital infrastructure and information systems, knowledge to support service designers in approaching transparency challenges is limited. An understanding of what sustainability transparency means and how to inform the scope for its application in service design is needed. A literature review of the historical evolution and key conceptualizations was used to provide a theoretical framework. Then, an exploratory multiple case study (ex-post-facto) (representing the different contexts of practice) was conducted to help validate and refine the framework. The provided framework can help in understanding the ethical, communication, and value-creation implications of the concept from the digital service-encounter to more systemic scopes.

Keywords

• transparency
• sustainability
• digital services
• design for sustainability
• service design