Contributing factors of cloud computing adoption: a technology-organisation-environment framework approach

Cloud computing as an emerging high technology has been recognised by organisations and individuals for a wide range of potential applications. Since the concept's first appearance in 2007, the authors found a dominant amount of studies in the non-technological domains, including attempts to define and categorise cloud computing and the challenges and issues of the technology's adoption. Nonetheless, few researches are dedicated to determine the drivers of adopting cloud computing thus the literature is limited on this topic. As more adopters are becoming familiar with the technology and implementing cloud computing in their daily work, understanding what drives their adoption decision is essential to create opportunities for future cloud technologies to be tailored and aligned with the consumer's needs thus promotes exploitations of the technology's promising applications. This research takes a quantitative approach by developing and validating a theory-based conceptual model. Among the theories that are commonly applied in Information Systems research, the authors found Technology-Organisation-Environment framework can encapsulate the adoption's factors into one big picture. The authors conducted a secondary data analysis on the recent large-scale survey of IBM to investigate the drivers and barriers of cloud computing adoption. Structural Equation Modelling and Partial Least Square statistical methodologies provide rigid scientific procedures to validate the conceptual model. This study contributes a statistically validated conceptual model of the drivers and barriers of cloud computing adoption.