Abstract
Sustainability has become the global need for survival in all scopes due to financial development's side effects that have resulted in environmental destruction. The world leaders have proposed green banking (GB) to reduce carbon footprints from banking operations by promoting paperless financial services based on technology. However, the adoption of GB remains unsatisfactory in the UAE. The study attempts to investigate the determinants of consumers' adoption of GB technology. An exploratory sequential mixed-method approach is employed. The qualitative analysis identified six new challenges facing customers' intention adoption of GB technology: customer awareness, personal innovativeness, bank reputation, security and privacy, system quality, and government support. The preliminary qualitative findings are mostly confirmed by quantitative study whereby customer awareness, personal innovativeness, system quality, and bank reputation significantly impact customers' intention to adopt GB technology. The discussions and implications of these findings are further elaborated.
TopIntroduction
The issues of environmental protection have become very critical for emerging countries, as they are exposed to the pressing challenges of climate change, pollution, deforestation, loss of biodiversity and arable land (Doh et al., 2019). The dependency on natural resources for economic development underpins the necessity for implementing sustainable strategies (Stockholm Environment Institute, 2013). This has resulted in supervisory authorities like United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and International Finance Corporation (IFC) initiating a sustainable transformation of the financial system to mitigate the severe problems of environmental emissions (Zhang et al., 2019; United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change [UNFCCC], 2021). To tackle climate change and its negative impacts, world leaders at the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris reached a breakthrough in December 2015: the historic Paris Agreement that was adopted by 196 countries, which includes commitments to reduce their emissions over time (UNFCCC, 2021). The digitalisation of businesses through various Industry Revolution (IR) 4.0 technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been suggested as means to alleviate pressure on the environment and natural resources (UNFCCC, 2021; Bukhari et al., 2022). However, many emerging economies are trailing behind in environmental unsustainability and lack of digitalisation (Bukhari et al., 2022).
Acknowledgement of digitalisation and environmentalism as a worldwide concern exerted pressure on the financial institutions to adopt green agenda, particularly in the banking industry (Julia & Kassim, 2020). The banking sector is considered the driving force behind economic sustainability (Bukhari et al., 2022). It plays a fundamental role in economic growth and key financier to consumers (Ozili & Opene, 2021). Banks may contribute to environmental conservation by incorporating green concepts into their lending and investment practices, diverting customers' attention to environmental management and the deployment of relevant green technology (Masukujjaman & Aktar, 2014). Thus, the country's sustainability is mainly dependent on the greening and digitalising of the banking industry. This led to the development of the concept of Green Banking (GB), a banking ideology that is based on the principles of environmental sustainability by integrating structural technology upgrades to banking operations and promoting paperless based financial services (Bouteraa et al., 2021). In other words, through technological and operational improvements and changing client habits, green banking has gradually made inroads in promoting environment-friendly practices, with a clear vision of future sustainability. This concept is mutually beneficial for banks, customers, and economies not only guarantees greening but also facilitates improvements in banks’ assets quality (Naveenan et al., 2021) as well as their financial performance (Finger et al., 2018). However, this innovative ideology is still struggling to be adopted by many developing countries (Bukhari et al., 2022).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Social Influence: Social influence refers to the degree to which the views of the other relevant parties influence the person's actions regarding the usage of innovative technologies ( Venkatesh et al., 2003 ). In the GB technology context, social influence refers to the extent to which the view of peers, families and relevant parties influence the behavioural intention of the bank customer regarding the adoption of GB technology services.
Personal Innovativeness: Personal Innovativeness refers to the individual's propensity and willingness to explore and examine new technologies and innovations ( Agarwal & Prasad, 1998 ). This definition measures the innovativeness of an individual on a scale from high to low, thus helping to identify individuals who are likely to adopt IT innovations earlier or later than others. Following Agarwal and Prasad (1998) , this study operationalises personal innovativeness as the bank customers' tendency and willingness to try out new GB technology services.
Performance Expectancy: Performance expectancy is the extent to which an individual believes that using a particular system would be more beneficial to him/her and would improve the performance of the task ( Venkatesh et al., 2003 ). In this context, performance expectancy can be operationalised as the extent to which bank customers perceive that using GB technology services would improve their performance of banking transactions.
Bank Reputation: The term “bank reputation” is used for the current study since the case study is in the banking sector. Previous literature had interchangeably used the concepts of corporate reputation (Özkan et al., 2019), company reputation ( Ikhsan & Simarmata, 2021 ) or bank reputation (Osakwe et al., 2020 AU120: The in-text citation "Osakwe et al., 2020" is not in the reference list. Please correct the citation, add the reference to the list, or delete the citation. ) based on the industry under investigation. Although the vocabularies differ in conceptualising the term of corporate reputation, one can observe the consensus on the essence of the concept as it is a result of the firm's past actions. From a well-adjusted perspective, this study trails the comprehensive focus of Tang (2007) AU121: The in-text citation "Tang (2007)" is not in the reference list. Please correct the citation, add the reference to the list, or delete the citation. , who views reputation as the value judgments among the public about an organisation's qualities. Accordingly, bank reputation is operationalised in the current study as the value judgment among the customers about the bank's qualities.
Effort Expectancy: Effort expectancy is the level of convenience and usability that people feel when using a specific information system ( Venkatesh et al., 2003 ). The current study operationalises effort expectancy as the convenience and usability that bank customers perceive when using GB technology services.
Intention to Adopt GB Technology Services: Behavioural intention is the dependent variable for the UTAUT model and this study. Behavioural intention is a person's degree of willingness to use innovative high-tech ( Venkatesh et al., 2003 ). In the context of the current study, the intention is a person's degree of willingness to adopt GB technology services.
GB Technology Services: GB technology refers to encouraging environment-friendly practices and reducing carbon footprints from banking operations through the promotion of financial services related to information technology like online banking, mobile banking, e-fund transfer, e-currency, e-payment, e-statement, and other paperless based financial transactions provided by the banks.
Security and Privacy: The security and privacy construct mainly describes the perceived credibility (Wang et al., 2003 AU124: The in-text citation "Wang et al., 2003" is not in the reference list. Please correct the citation, add the reference to the list, or delete the citation. ), which is defined as the degree of belief and trust in internet-based products and services to transmit sensitive information (Salisbury et al., 2001 AU125: The in-text citation "Salisbury et al., 2001" is not in the reference list. Please correct the citation, add the reference to the list, or delete the citation. ). In the setting of GB technology, perceived security and privacy is the degree to which a bank customer believes that the GB technology services will be free of security and privacy threats.
Customer Awareness: Awareness can be defined as the volume of information that customers receive regarding the product's advantages and disadvantages (Hanafizadeh & Khedmatgozar, 2012 AU122: The in-text citation "Hanafizadeh & Khedmatgozar, 2012" is not in the reference list. Please correct the citation, add the reference to the list, or delete the citation. ), or the degree of users' consciousness of using technology (Seleviciene & Burkšaitiene, 2015). Meanwhile, Ratanya (2017) linked the level of awareness to the existence of technology services. However, the current study's definition scope is broader to cover a more comprehensive concept of awareness. Thus, awareness is operationalised as the amount of information about GB technology services and the bank customers' levels of consciousness of its existence, concept, purpose, and benefits.
System Quality: System quality is the degree to which the system is easy to use and complies with functionality, reliability, flexibility, data quality, and integration requirements to accomplish certain tasks ( Delone & McLean, 2003 ). Therefore, the measure of system quality in this study focuses on the features and performance characteristics of GB technology. In keeping with Delone and McLean (2003) , system quality in this current study's setting refers to the degree to which the comprehensive design of the system, response time, system reliability, system availability, functionality, and flexibility influence the perception of the bank customer regarding the adoption of GB technology services.
Facilitating conditions: According to Venkatesh et al. (2003) , facilitating conditions refer to the availability of the required technical resources for the customer to support the implementation of a specific technology. In the current study, facilitating conditions denote the availability of the essential resources for the bank customer to support the adoption of GB technology services.
Government Support: Government support refers to the role of the government in promoting and encouraging the implementation and usage of technology (Tornatzky & Fleischer, 1990 AU123: The in-text citation "Tornatzky & Fleischer, 1990" is not in the reference list. Please correct the citation, add the reference to the list, or delete the citation. ). The central meaning of this concept is that the government is an important external factor that is able to create a favourable environment and provide incentives for technology implementation. Thus, when adopting financing technology services like GB services, consumers expect to receive support from the government concerning policies, incentives, and subsidies to accelerate the rate of acceptance. Accordingly, government support in the context of this study can be operationalised as the role of the government-related policies that cover a different set of rules and promotion incentives to adopt GB technology services.