The Role of E-participation, Human Capital, and Corruption-Free on Environmental Performance

Abstract

There are many concerns at the global level about environmental performance. The United Nations has created a framework for measuring national development goals that enable environmental sustainability. This paper examines the relationships between technological and social factors as enablers of environmental performance and draws from technological determinism and human agency paradigms. It fills an important gap in the literature by empirically examining the hypothesized relationships. The specific examined factors are online service (maturity and quality), IT infrastructure, e-participation, corruption-free, and human capital. Environmental performance is the dependent variable. These factors are relevant to ten of the seventeen goals that the United Nations set in their SDG framework. The hypotheses are tested and validated using secondary data collected by reputable global institutions and PLS-SEM analytical procedures. The results indicate that technology can enable environmental performance directly and indirectly through e-participation. We also found that e-participation influences corruption-free and human capital that positively impact environmental performance. This paper provides significant implications for research and practice.