Abdullah Alhammadi, Clare Stanier and Alan Eardley, Staffordshire University, United Kingdom

There is a large volume of published studies investigating the factors that affect cloud adoption. However, there are very few studies which investigate cloud computing adoption in technologically developing countries and one focus of the research was to examine whether the factors which influence cloud computing adoption in technologically developed countries also apply in technologically developing countries. The research presented in this paper builds on the diffusion of innovation theory (DOI) and the Technology-organisation-environment (TOE) framework in order to investigate the factors which influence cloud adoption. Fourteen hypothesis were developed from the literature on cloud adoption and were examined in the research. Data was collected by using a web-based questionnaire and was analysed using a range of statistical measures. This paper discusses the design and implementation of the study, the data analysis and conclusions from the analysis and compares the findings of this study with the findings of similar studies in technologically developed countries. The study shows that there are some similarities as well as some differences in the factors that affect cloud adoption between technologically developed countries and technologically developing countries.

Cloud computing adoption, Diffusion of innovation (DOI), Technology-organisation-environment (TOE)