Authors:
Yazan Alshamaila
1
;
Savvas Papagiannidis
2
and
Feng Li
2
Affiliations:
1
Newcastle University Business School and Newcastle University, United Kingdom
;
2
Newcastle University, United Kingdom
Keyword(s):
Cloud Computing, SME, Information Technology Adoption, Technological Factors, Organisational Factors, Environmental Factors.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
B2B, B2C and C2C
;
Communication and Software Technologies and Architectures
;
e-Business
;
e-Business and e-Commerce
;
Enterprise Information Systems
;
Society, e-Business and e-Government
;
Software Agents and Internet Computing
;
Web Information Systems and Technologies
Abstract:
The growing adoption of cloud computing is changing the way business information systems are developed, scaled up, maintained and paid for. This not only applies to large organisations, but also increasingly to small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs). In particular, cloud computing promises to improve the reliability and scalability of IT systems, which allows SMEs to focus their limited resources on their core business and strategy. In the SME context, technology adoption and usage decisions are influenced by many factors. This paper attempts to conceptualize cloud computing adoption and to enhance understanding of the range of factors affecting cloud computing adoption decision making in SMEs. Based on semi-structured interviews with SMEs and service providers in the North East of England, a number of factors were examined and found to affect the adoption process. By adopting the TOE framework as a theoretical basis, it has been found that cloud computing adoption decision is infl
uenced by different types of factors and therefore, is not exclusive to one or two dimensions e.g. technological and organisational contexts, as presented in some previous ICT adoption studies. The main factors that were identified playing a significant role in SME adoption of cloud services were: relative advantage, uncertainty, geo-restriction, compatibility, trialability, size, top management support, innovativeness, industry, market scope, supplier efforts and external computing support. These finding have important implications and great value to the research community, business practitioners, and policy makers in terms of formulating better strategies for cloud computing adoption. For service providers, using the research model in this study can assist in increasing their understanding of why some SMEs choose to adopt cloud computing services. In this study, the authors present empirical evidence from Northeast of England where limited research efforts have taken place.
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