IS executives and sustainability: a literature review

The pressing global sustainability challenges, encapsulated in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), require profound transformations across multiple levels. It is imperative for the Information Systems (IS) discipline to engage in addressing these challenges. This paper aims to contribute to this imperative through a scoping literature review, examining factors that enable IS executives to drive sustainability outcomes within organizations, utilizing the Input-Mediator-Outcome (IMO) framework. By analyzing 31 articles from important IS journals and conferences between 2008 and 2024, this review identifies key input factors for sustainability outcomes, such as individual IS executive inputs, the role of the Top Management Team (TMT) setting and organizational contexts, as well as external influences. In addition, it explores how team-specific processes can augment sustainability efforts. The paper concludes by proposing future research questions to address underrepresented SDGs, investigate external impact factors more thoroughly, and emphasize the role of individual IS executive inputs. These insights aspire to advance the understanding of IS executives’ potential to influence sustainability in organizational settings.