A model for cloud computing adoption by Saudi government overseas agencies

Abstract

There are benefits and challenges in cloud computing adoption, which could be affected by technological, environmental, organisational and societal factors. Cloud computing adoption has been sufficiently investigated; however, there is dearth of empirical research on cloud computing adoption in public sector organisations of developing countries that operate overseas such as embassies, trade and commerce offices and cultural bureaus.
The aim of this study is to empirically identify factors that significantly influence the adoption of cloud computing in government organisations overseas.
The methodology of this cross sectional study includes use of mixed method approach and data triangulation using exploratory semi-structured interviews with 10 IT experts, evaluation of a cloud computing research framework by 37 IT experts and an online questionnaire survey involving a convenience sample of 226 employees working in different overseas organisations of Saudi Arabian government. The survey data were analysed using the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and followed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM).
The results showed cloud computing adoption has statistically significant positive association with top management support (β=0.7, p <0.001), data security (β=0.678, p <0.001), trust (β=0.58, p = 0.001), cost of infrastructure (β=0.479, p = 0.001), usefulness of the system (β=0.449, p <0.001), privacy (β=0.362, p = 0.001) organisation size (β=0.299, p = 0.001), employee readiness (β=0.26, p = 0.006) and quality of service (β=0.184, p = 0.009). Cloud computing adoption has statistically significant but negative association with culture of the home country (i.e. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) (β= -0.689, p = 0.001), legal and policy concerns (β= -0.559, p = 0.001), lack of IT standards (β= -0.519, p < 0.001), employee resistance (β= -0.364, p = 0.016), expandability of application to the cloud (β= -0.186, p = 0.015) and government intervention (β= -0.083, p = 0.001). There was no statistically significant association between cloud computing adoption and vision of an organisation (β= -0.083, p = 0.233), culture of (Saudi) government organisations overseas (β= -0.08, p = 0.214), change management competences (β= -0.038, p = 0.879) and internet speed and reliability (β= -0.014, p = 0.829).
The present study has identified that top management support, data security, and cost of infrastructure are the three critical factors that could promote cloud computing adoption decisions in overseas government organisations of developing countries such as Saudi Arabia. However, the major barriers in cloud computing adoption culture in these organisations include the home country and legal and policy concerns, which need to be considered by managers and policy makers interested in cloud computing adoption. In addition, cloud computing services providers should address the critical barriers especially the lack of IT standards that have been identified as a key factor having a significant negative association with cloud computing adoption.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Gary Wills: orcid.org/0000-0001-5771-4088

ORCID for Madini Alassafi: orcid.org/0000-0001-9919-8368

ORCID for Abdulrahman Alharthi: orcid.org/0000-0002-2160-9515

ORCID for Abdullah, Ibrahim A Alzahrani: orcid.org/0000-0002-4718-7568

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