A Study of Human Attitude, Persuasion And Ethics Towards The Adoptation Of Sustainable Technology Among Malaysian SMEs

This research investigates the impact of human attitudes, human persuasion and human ethics towards the adoption of sustainable technology among the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia. There is a lacuna in the literature of the focusing on the human factors (attitudes, persuasions and ethical belief) of adoption of sustainable technology in the SMEs context in emerging economy such as Malaysia. The study develops a comprehensive model of sustainable technology adoption considering the strengths and limitations of the existing models. The main theories utilized this paper include the theory of reasoned action (TRA), theory of planned behavior (TPB), attribution theory (AT), environmental attitudes model and the triple bottom line model. The theoretical framework developed for this study is based on the premise of the above theories. A total of 234 sample taken from 2369 SMEs in Malaysia. The major nding of this research suggest that affective attitudes, cognitive attitudes, reasoned persuasion, sentimental persuasion, anthropocentrism and altruism signicantly impact adoption mechanism of sustainable technology in a Malaysian setting. These ndings are later highlighted in this paper. The implications, limitations and future research avenue are highlighted in the paper.


Introduction
Developing sustainable technological innovation is more than a goal for the future. It is a survival approach that will inform and ensure the long-term survival of humanity as well as make improvements in humans' daily lifestyles. Research proves that the acquisition of sustainable technology will eventually reduce the possibility of environmental degradation, pollution and climate change (Parrish, 2007 (Berardi, 2013). Despite its prominence, this de nition does not provide a clear description from an organizational and technological innovation standpoint. As such, organizations often nd it di cult, with their roles and their perspective to produce new technological innovation that contributes to sustainability (Gmelin&Seuring, 2014). Therefore, sustainable technological innovation can be best de ned as the innovation that has the potential in reducing long-term risks associated with resource depletion, uctuations in energy costs, product liabilities, pollution, waste management and treatment (Shrivastava, 1995 With the aim of decreasing the cost of usability, many industries are consequently bene ting from this, prompting new technologies that are widely adopted (Maet al.,2009; Talukder, 2019). As mentioned by Carrigan, Moraes and Leek (2011), the question that needs answering is: can SMEs contribute to sustainability? Their core ability and role in fostering societal change towards a more sustainable and environment-friendly mode of living is still being explored.
This research lls a gap in the literature on sustainable technology adoption within SMEs context in a developing country such as Malaysia In order to test organizational attitudes, persuasions and ethical belief, four main theories were executed and expand. The theory of reasoned action (TRA) and theory of planned behavior (TPB) are the theory that best explain attitudes. Attribution theory (AT) will further explain the persuasions, whilst Thompson  . Hence, the objective of the study is to investigate the impact of human attitudes, human persuasion and human ethical belief impact on the organizational decision to adopt sustainable technology. The study also explains the impact of moderating variables (Organizational size, duration of business and industry sector) on perception and adoption.

Literature review, theory and model
Radical innovation is de ned as the foundational creations that serve as the basis of many subsequent technical developments (Datta & Jessup, 2013; Choiet al.,2016). An alternative meaning for the term is the involvement of product commercialization, based on the signi cant leaps made in technological development. This generates the potential for entirely new features and improved performance or cost, compared with the existing choices, offering a substantial increase in consumer bene ts (Vowleset al., 2011;Changet al.,2012;Pinoet al.,2016). Radical innovation needs to be unique, novel and original to impact on future technology development (Datta & Jessup, 2013;Keupp& Gassmann, 2013).
Radical innovation is essential for any organization or nations' economic growth and prosperity and solving environmental problems (Buschgenset al.,2013;Choiet al.,2016). Research has shown that adopting radical innovation can only bring about a small percentage of success; therefore, organizations tend to not take the risk of implementing it (Buschgenset al.,2013;Talukder, 2014). Corporations that cannot emulate this form of innovation will nd it di cult to stay in the market for a longer period of time, despite their need to survive in order to maintain future markets.
This research proposes the adoption of sustainable technology which is categorized as a radical technology because organizations need to change and develop a new set of processes and operations for the creation of products and services. Due to its radical nature, the adoption of sustainable technology is a change that needs the full cooperation of various levels of stakeholders such as employees, management, suppliers, customers and clients. To contribute to sustainability, innovation serves as an important means of implementing new and signi cantly improved products, processes, marketing methods and organizational methods in business practices, organizational workplaces and external relations (Nagalingamet al.,2013; Klewitz& Hansen, 2014).
One of the main reasons for organizations undertaking sustainable technology approach is to reduce operating costs and minimize the environmental impacts of business process (Mishraet al.,2014). Organizations encounter a major task on supplying sustainable development accordingly to the demand of clients, consumers and the society (Liuet al, 2012). Excelling on social and environmental dimensions may improve business performance, especially in the current social status where the consumers possess greater awareness on their social responsibility (Achabou&Dekhili, 2013). In achieving sustainable technological innovations, there are four main keys of development such as sustainable living, sustainable resource, sustainable process, and sustainable product that need to be taken from both Our study designs an enhanced model of sustainable technology adoption considering the strengths and limitations of the relevant theories existing in the extant literature. Details of the relevant theories are as follows: 1. The theory of reasoned action (TRA), (Fishbein &Ajzen, 1980)posits that attitudes towards behavior are described as an individual's positive or negative feelings (evaluating effect) about performing that behavior. Attitudes are sets of beliefs about a certain object or an act, which may translate into the intention to carry out the act.

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2. The theory of planned behavior (TPB), (Ajzen, 1991.This theory is based on the arguments that the assumption made is that people make rational choices by evaluating and weighing the perceived positive and negative expected outcomes, thus focusing on attaining their goals. This theory also proposes that the intention to behave captures the motivation to exert certain behavior, and hence in uences the behavior. TPB uses the same construct as TRA, with the additional construct of perceived behavior control, which is considered a component that controls organizations behavior through their 'ethical belief'. The salient points of this theory are an organization's own attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, intentions and behavior. 3. Attribution theory (AT) (Heider, 1958). The main premise of this theory is that it highlights the importance of both internal and external on organization attitudes. Theory explains that an organization's action is de ned by their inner and outer traits. An organization's personality and situation can be attributed to the actions they have taken; actions are taken if the organization has synchronized both their inner and outer attributes. An organization's attitude is the internal factor that in uences certain behaviors, while persuasion is the external factor. Theory is used to nd the causative factor of a certain incident or action, bringing out in organization's direct or indirect involvement. 4. Environmental attitude model (EAM) (Thompson & Barton, 1994). This theory is based on the arguments that there are two types of ethical attitudes towards the environment: eco-centric and anthropocentric. These ethical attitudes serve as an organization's moral reasoning towards an environmental dilemma, which is perceived as the human relationship with the environment. Organization awareness of environmental values should be the main focus in creating a more sustainable society. This referred to anthropocentrism as the belief in human superiority over the environment. Thompson and Barton (1994) agreed with this notion; they describe organizations who value the environment for the material and physical bene ts it provides, and who argue for the bene ts of adopting sustainability.
The enhanced and comprehensive model includes several modi cations that these existing models lack. The human attitudes (affective, cognitive and behavioral) and human persuasion (credibility, persuasion and sentiment) elements are based on TRA, TPB and AT. The third category, human ethical belief (anthropocentrism, eco-centrism and altruism)is explained by Thompson and Barton's (1994) EAM.
The human attitudes re ect that an individual's intention to adopt a new technology is in uenced by their personality (attitudes) and surroundings (subjective norms). Attribution theory describes the surrounding that affects an individual's decision as situational (persuasion), whereby the organization's situation will act as the trigger for their intention to adopt new technology. Both attitudes and persuasion are essential in explaining the function of human attitudes towards sustainable technology adoption. Both are integrated into the research to acknowledge the top management opinions of the environmental issues that can in uence its adoption of sustainable technology in the SMEs context.
The third category is human ethical belief, derived from Thompson and Barton's (1994) EAM. Researchers who have utilized this model identi ed ethical belief as an element, as it explains how an organization makes ethical decisions about the environment. It helps explain the individual perception of environmental values, which is why it is considered an essential inclusion for the research model. It will explain why organizations base their acceptance of sustainable technology on their ethical beliefs concerning the environment.
Organizational demographic characteristics are also added into the model outlined below in Fig. 1 which will be used as a control variable of the research to explain the level of adoption from different organizations. These include the size of the SMEs, duration in the business and the industry sectors.

Human ethics
Anthropocentrism and Eco-centrism are two different attitudes which individuals' have towards the environment. Anthropocentrism individuals feel that the environment needs to be protected because of its value to improve human quality of life while Eco-centric individuals feel that nature deserves to be protected because of its intrinsic value (Thompson & Barton, 1994). Different types of environmental attitudes may provide different types of approach and appeal. Research suggested that the attitudes showed by present generation lean more towards the anthropocentrism in which individuals value the environment as something that can generate pro t and it should be well maintained for a long-term investment (Kopnina, 2014). Individuals that have high awareness towards the climate change and environmental issue are more inclined to have the Eco-centrism attitudes which makes them prefer to preserve the environment (Kontenkamp & Moore, 2001). Every decision that the organizations make will always affect the people around them. On the other hand, the development of altruistic attitude tends to rely on mis ts of others. Individuals that acquire this attribute are affected more on their surroundings rather than themselves. Each decision that they made will always be considerate towards the peoples around them; how does they fair; will the decision bene ts others, does it bring misfortune to others. H8: Eco-centrism attitude has apositive impact on the adoption of sustainable technology.
H9: Altruism attitude has apositive impact on the adoption of sustainable technology.

SMEs Demographics
The characteristic of an organization provides a substantial indicator to measure the capability of a certain organization in adopting innovation or a new practice. In terms of sustainability, the capacity of an organization needs to be analyzed whether they have su cient time, resources or information to make an adoption (Bourlakiset al.,2014). The capability for an organization to survive in the current market can be identi ed as an important aspect to measure organizational behavior and attitudes (Stamm&Lubinski, 2011). The SMEs size, duration in business and industry sector can determined the capability for the organization to make business decision and strategic development for the environmental sustainability (Eggerset al.,2013). Therefore, the following hypothesis has been proposed: H10:SMEs'characteristic has a moderating impact on the adoption of sustainable technology.

Methods And Statistical Techniques
The study was conducted among the small and medium sized organizations in Malaysia. Date were collected using survey questionnaire. Table 1 shows the construct of measurement and the sources. Survey questionnaires were distributed randomly to 2360 SMEs in Malaysia. The access to Malaysian SMEs was obtained by cooperating with the Association of SMEs in Malaysia. Although 242 questionnaires were received after two reminders, a total of 234 sets of completed questionnaires were used, while 3 respondents opt out in the middle of the participation and the rest 5 survey questionnaires were disquali ed as the respondents did not answer the questions appropriately. Partial Least Square Structural Equation Model (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze the data. PLS-SEM can measure multiple construct variables at the same time, allowing the researchers to evaluate multiple theories within one model. As for this research that used 4 basic theories that been expand and modi ed according   Table 2 shows factor loading, reliability, convergent validity and discriminant validity. To further analyze this data, the researcher usedSmartPLS, which canmeasure the constructs. By using the PLS-SEM algorithm to run a path coe cient model analysis, this research can determine organizational attitudes towards sustainable technology. The researchers evaluated the theoretical research framework and further determined the coe cient of determination. Furthermore, a blindfolding and predictive relevance was calculated to summarize the results. An important-performance matrix analysis was further concluded the ndings and at the end a modelling categorical moderator effects was calculated to determine a demographic effect of adoption of sustainable technology.

Data Analysis And Findings
Demographic information Table 3 summarizes the respondents' demographics, including the type of SMEs, age of businesses, number of employees, annual sales turnover and location of the establishment. Service-oriented SMEs constitute 44.4%, while product-oriented organizations represent 55.6% of the respondents' cohort. This distribution of organizations' type re ects that product-oriented organizations are keener towards sustainable development as they have exposed themselves to sustainable technology more than serviceoriented SMEs. while the second highest is the organizations that accumulated less than MYR300,000 a year that is made of 38.5%. The organizations that gain sales turnover between MYR15 million to MYR50 million that is a total of 16.2% in this survey. This data has shown two important aspects. The rst aspect is that the SMEs that have taken part in this survey have re ected the current status of SMEs in Malaysia, with micro-organizations as the highest number of organizations Malaysia, followed by small scale organizations and medium size organizations. The second aspect is that the micro and small organization lean more aware of sustainable development and are willing to take part in sustainable adoption studies.

Composite reliability
Internal consistency reliability that is also known as composite reliability is the modern version of  Table 2 for organizational persuasion, which shows high level of composite reliability values of 0.951 (Credibility), 0.941 (Sentiment), and 0.939 (Reasoned). In Table 2

Discriminant validity
As indicated in Table 2, the results of Fornell-Larcker criterion assessment with the square root of the AVE are assembled diagonally. The value was compared to all the correlation values of each column. Table 4 shows that the square root of all variables is greater than the highest values of other correlation which indicates that all variables are discriminately valid.  Although the path coe cient can estimate the signi cant values of a variable, ultimately it depends on its standard error that is obtained by means of bootstrapping. In bootstrapping, subsamples are randomly drawn from the original set of data. Each subsample is then used to estimate the model. This process is repeated until a large number of random subsamples have been created. In this research, the total of subsamples is 10,000 to represent SMEs in Malaysia. The bootstrapping will be applied to compute the t value. The empirical t value needs to be larger than the critical value, to determine whether the coe cient is signi cant at a certain error probability. After computing the t values, any value that is more than 1.65 (signi cant level = 10%) will be considered as signi cant. The PLS path show that the relationship between affective attitude towards adoption is very signi cant at t value of 7. The most commonly used measure to evaluate the structural model is the coe cient of determination.
The coe cient of determination (R² value) ranged from 0 to 1, with higher levels indicating higher levels of predictive accuracy. In the research of organizational attitudes, R² value of 0.20 and above are considered as high predictive accuracy. In this research, R² value of 0.26, 0.13, or 0.02 for dependent variable can be respectively described as substantial, moderate, or weak (Cohen, 1988 (Cohen 1988). Indicated in Table 5, the f² effect size for all the relationship between independent and dependent variables are listed. The relationships that have weak effect size are cognitive → adoption (0.000), behavioral→ adoption (0.003), credibility → adoption (0.002), sentiment →adoption (0.001), reasoned → adoption (0.004), anthropocentrism → adoption (0.000), and eco-centrism → adoption (0.002). The relationship that has a small f² effect size is altruism → adoption (0.037), and there is only one relationship that considered having medium f² effect size, which is affective → adoption (0.121). In addition to evaluating the magnitude of the R² values as a criterion of predictive accuracy, this study also determines the Q² value. This measure is an indicator of the theoretical research model's predictive relevance. It will accurately predict the data points of the construct measurements of each independent and dependent variable. The Q² value for adoption variables carry the value of 0.169, which indicates that the dependable variable has predictive relevance (Hairet al.,2013; Wonget al.,2016).Like the f² effect size approach for assessing R² values, the relative impact of predictive relevance can be compared by means of the measure to the q² effect size. As indicated in Table 4, the q² effect size that is considered as weak are cognitive → adoption (-0.001), behavioral → adoption (0.001), credibility → adoption (-0.001), sentiment → adoption (-0.001), reasoned → adoption (0.001), anthropocentrism → adoption (0.000), and eco-centrism → adoption (0.001). The small q² effect size that are shown in the table are affective → adoption (0.079), altruism → adoption (0.022).
To take a step further in analyzing the data, importance-performance matrix analysis (IPMA) extend the results of PLS-SEM by also taking the performance of each variables into account. With the result, the research can make a conclusion on two dimensions which are particularly important to prioritize further actions. It is preferable to primarily focus on improving the low performance of constructs with larger importance regarding their explanation of a certain target variables. Importance-performance matrix analysis (IPMA) can explain the structural model total effects (importance) and the average values of the latent variable scores (performance) to highlight signi cant areas for the improvement in the future activities. As shown in Table 6, the affective variable has high importance of 0.279 with the performance of 69.970, while cognitive variable has a negative importance of -0.017 with the performance of 72.820. Behavioral variable also has a low importance of 0.076 with a moderate performance of 66.983, and credibility variable share the same fate with a low importance of 0.057 with a performance level of 67.804. Sentiment variable has a 0.033 level of importance with 64.690 performances, followed by reasoned variable that has a negative importance level of -0.105 with a performance level of 68.268. For the ethical belief, only altruism that has a high importance level of 0.312 that has a performance level of 76.305, while anthropocentrism and eco-centrism have a low importance level of 0.018 and − 0.058. Table 7 shows support status of hypotheses testing.

Discussion And Implications
The results from the PLS-SEM path analysis in general show that affective attitudes and altruism belief to be positive and signi cant towards the adoption of sustainable technology (Fig. 2). This shows that the stronger organizations have positive feelings towards sustainability, there are possibilities for the organization to adopt sustainable technology. Furthermore, the research shows that Malaysian SMEs have high altruism values which put others well-being before their own. The more their actions affect the people around them, the more they will eventually lead them to adopt sustainability. As shown in Table 4, the R² value for adoption as dependent variables is high at 0.233. The variable that has contributed the most to explain the adoption is the affective attitude of with predictive accuracy (f²effect size) value of 0.121 and predictive relevance (q² Effect Size) of 0.079. This show that affective attitude is the main factors for organizations to adopt sustainable technology which support our rst hypothesis (H1). As Buijsand Lawrence (2013) stated, these emotional states can drove individuals' and even organizations' towards deciding to approach sustainable technology with a feeling of attachment, respect, responsibility, and joy towards sustainable technological innovation. An affective attitude involves directly within individuals' action towards a certain phenomenon. Their emotional state will create reactions when encountering a problem or an opportunity, thus lead towards an action of a certain phenomenon. This shows that with high affective attitudes individuals' that deciding for their organizations, can lead towards the adopting sustainable technology. Sustainable technology within a developing country carries a lot of burden for SMEs where a lot of nancial stress change for an opportunity into a liability.
Organizations need to have high affective attitude to ensure that they will take the opportunity although it may carry some risk for their organizations. The stronger their affective attitudes, the more willing for them to make the sustainable technology a success or their organizations. According to Jepson, Continuing in this discussion, this study further explains the phenomenon when there is a moderator that is involved among the PLS-SEM path coe cients. Although Fig. 2 has explained the path relationship in general, in case of a moderator effects, there will be a different phenomenon that really needs to be further discussed before any conclusion can be made. As shown in Figs. 3 and 4, there are multiple antecedents that need to be added into the theoretical research model to explain clearly the phenomenon for the service-oriented and micro sized organizations. In the services industry for SMEs in Malaysia, cognitive attitudes, reasoned persuasion and anthropocentrism belief also play great roles in the adoption of sustainable technology. The service-oriented organizations have high cognitive attitudes towards the adoption process, which show that they believe in their responsibility towards achieving sustainable businesses. Lee and Lee (2014) describe cognitive attitude as strong belief that will drive organizations to act to ensure sustainability is achieved. According to Mishra, Akman and Mishra (2014), organizations that have strong belief towards sustainability are more driven towards the bene ts that this technology possesses. This can be explained looking at the characteristic of service-oriented organizations.
As services-oriented organizations tend to focus on the bene ts of the adoptions, they tend to have higher anthropocentrism belief and are easily persuaded by reasoning. High anthropocentrism belief shows that the services-oriented organizations tend to adopt sustainable technology to create appearance in front of the clients and customers as an attraction. All the bene ts that can be gained from the adoption can be obtained as personal interest. A total reasoning can persuade the service-oriented organizations by providing facts and accurate data that inform them regarding the bene ts of sustainable technology.
Approaching and encouraging organizations through this method can be done in a form of arguments, giving logic and facts, revealing data and evidence that can give organizations a reason or motivate them to adopt sustainable technology.
As described by Han (2015), organizations that are attracted to sustainable technology through reasoned are mostly made of individuals that have high cognitive attitudes towards that technology, which can bring them bene ts or in other words it is known as anthropocentrism. This description accurately explains the phenomenon for the services-oriented organizations. In terms of product-oriented organizations, the path coe cients are similar with the general theoretical research model.
In terms of the size of organizations among the SMEs in Malaysia, there are different perceptions for micro organizations. Micro organizations in Malaysia are described as organizations that have less than 5 employees and gain sales turnover that is lower than MYR300,000. Micro organizations in Malaysia tend to have an eco-centrism belief, which means they value the nature and environment for its own intrinsic beauty. The organizations can be easily appealed through emotional persuasion that portrays the important of conserving the environment. They lean more towards pro-environmental, which focuses on enhancement and preservation. These organizations tend to have a vision to survive for a longer period in the future, which need a long run process. Such process describes the micro organizations as those which have a plan and sustainable technology that carries the role to help them survive the current market and the future.
As Morgan, Hine, Bhullar andLoi (2015) describe the characteristic of an eco-centric organizations, is that they are responsive to sentiment persuasion as indicated in Fig. 3. There is only one additional factor that needs to be explained in relation to the size of SMEs in Malaysia, where Medium organizations tend to have lower affective attitudes. The values still point to a positive relationship, but they describe medium organizations as not able to easily adopt sustainable technology through their affective attitudes. All these results show that our hypothesis on demographic (H10) has shown us that a certain criterion of SMEs requires a certain kind of attention to ensure a smooth adoption of sustainable technology. The government and NGOs must apply a certain strategy to provide directions to a certain group of SMEs.

Implications for SMEs
In adopting sustainable technology, affective attitudes and altruism are the essential elements towards the completion of the process. It is important for SMEs to acknowledge that their feelings and opinions play an important role in the decision to adopt sustainable technology. Risking the adoption of sustainable technology that they do not favor; attractive sustainable technology should be focused on instead. As the affective attitude increases, the adoption of the technology by SMEs will occur more effectively. If they did not favor or feels uneasy when using the technology, eventually they will give up half way; this is a waste of both effort and time. SMEs also should choose sustainable technology that will reduce any risk faced by both their employees and customers. Higher altruism will encourage the employees to put in extra efforts and ensure that the adoption is a success.

Implications For Society
The ndings of this research have important implications for society. First, society will be better off in terms of bene ts arising from implementation of sustainable technology in organizations. Use of sustainable technology will contribute to lower emission in the atmosphere and thereby make pollution management easier. Use of sustainable technology will also have critical bearing on health and safety of citizens as well as on employees. Furthermore, implementation of sustainable technology will result in enhancement of e ciency and effectiveness of business operations leading to higher pro ts. Societal bene ts from better business performance will result in terms of employment opportunity leading to increased purchasing power and higher standard of living of citizens.

Conclusion
By identifying a comprehensive list of organizational attitudes, persuasions and ethical belief factors as well as demographic in organizations' perception towards the adoption of sustainable technology, this study departs from the traditional sustainable acceptance model that factors affecting such adoption is not limited to a few factors. Thus, this study contributes to knowledge by introducing a number of diverse factors impacting organizational adoption of sustainable technology in a transitional economy such as Malaysia. The PLS-SEM path analysis indicated that twelve independent variables impact adoption of sustainable technology. These twelve factors accounted for 72.2% of variance in the organizational acceptance of sustainable technology.
The results of PLS-SEM path analysis indicated that affective attitudes and altruism have high coe cient and predictive ability towards the adoption of sustainable technology. Thus, it is suggested that the government, private organizations and NGOs which aim to implement sustainability among SMEs need to focus on creating a surrounding environment based on these approaches. Demographic characteristics do show de nite differences for the advanced theoretical research model used in this research ndings further suggest that service-oriented organizations and micro organizations need to integrate the changing circumstances resulting from emergence of additional factors impacting adoption of sustainable technology. More speci cally, our research found that service-oriented organizations are affected by affective attitudes along with cognitive attitudes, reasoned persuasions and anthropocentrism as depicted in in Fig. 3. This study also found that micro sized organizations are affected by sentimental persuasion. These organizationsalso have eco-centrism belief as part of their ethical belief.
The research outcomes also suggest that government, private organizations and NGOs need to design appropriate strategies based on their target audiences. The government or NGOs need to implement additional methods to tackle services-oriented organizations and micro sized organizations to ensure a smooth adoption process of sustainable technology. This is important, where different approach may prove to be useful for a certain group of organizations. Towards implementing and managing sustainability government organizationsand NGOs must recognize the organizational attitudes, persuasions and ethical belief as well as demographic factors as critical imperatives in uencing organizational adoption of sustainable technology. The ndings of this study will help governments to identify factors and provide favorable environmental conditions prior to implementation of sustainable technology. Finally, our study offers better understanding of the critical factors promoting adoption of sustainable technology in a transitional market economy such as Malaysia.

Limitations And Future Research Potential
The obvious limitation of the study lies in data sourced from a single country which limits the scope for