Digitization and Sustainability: Smart Working as an ICT Tool to Improve the Sustainable Performance of Companies During the Covid-19 Pandemic

The following paper aims to explain to the reader the existing interconnection between the paradigms of sustainability and digitization. In detail, the study will focus on Smart Working, analyzing this tool for its possible improvement of the sustainable performance of companies, and its benefits on the environment, making use of the perceptions that people have about this new way of working. Through the use of a questionnaire, it has been analyzed the perception that people have about this new way of working, which has characterized their lives for about two months during the lockdown period in Italy, caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, considering the time period from 9th March to 1st June 2020. The questionnaire was developed using Google Forms, and it was administered using Computer Assisted Web Interviewing (CAWI) using social networks, primarily Facebook and LinkedIn; 352 workers participated in the survey. The results show that the sample under review is satisfied with this new way of working, both in terms of reducing expenses and increasing the time that can be dedicated to personal activities, and from the point of view of improving the environmental impact. Despite this, a state of skepticism reigns which is characteristic of great changes, since the Covid-19 pandemic we are facing, as a country and globe, forces us to change our habits established over time.