Partly Cloudy, Scattered Clients: Cloud Implementation in the Federal Government

Since the issuance of a federal mandate in 2010 requiring federal government agencies in the United States of America to immediately shift to a “Cloud First” policy, agencies have struggled to adopt cloud computing. Previous research has examined hindrances to cloud computing adoption across industries in the private sector (Raza et al., 2015, Park and Ryoo, 2012, and Bhattacherjee and Park, 2012). While this research provides important insights on cloud computing adoption in the private sector, it devotes scant attention to challenges of cloud computing adoption in the federal government. This study seeks to fill this gap by examining the roles of Top Management Support and Information Security Awareness on cloud computing implementation success in the federal government. Institutional theory serves as the theoretical framework for this study

Issues and challenges: cloud computing e-Government in developing countries

Cloud computing has become essential for IT resources that can be delivered as a service over the Internet. Many e-government services that are used worldwide provide communities with relatively complex applications and services. Governments are still facing many challenges in their implementation of e-government services in general, including Saudi Arabia, such as poor IT infrastructure, lack of finance, and insufficient data security. This research paper investigates the challenges of e-government cloud service models in developing countries. This paper finds that governments in developing countries are influenced by how the top management deals with the attention to the adoption of cloud computing. Further, organisational readiness levels of technologies, such as IT infrastructure, internet availability and social trust of the adoption of new technology as cloud computing, still present limitations for e-government cloud services adoption. Based on the findings of the critical review, this paper identifies the issues and challenges affecting the adoption of cloud computing in e- government such as IT infrastructure, internet availability, and trust adopted new technologies thereby highlighting benefits of cloud computing-based e-government services. Furthermore, we propose recommendations for developing IT systems focused on trust when adopting cloud computing in e-government services (CCEGov)

Cloud computing and prospective business and economic impacts in developing country: A case study of Thailand

The cloud computing model is a modern concept of computation that provides a number of benefits for its adopters. This online computing model has been widely used in the western world and accepted to have some business and economic impacts. This paper provides some basic knowledge about cloud computing along with its economic benefits. The author proposes that there is an endogenous relationship between the cloud computing and each of the business and economic variables, namely output, employment, and labour productivity. In order to forecast the impacts of the cloud computing adoption, the Vector Autoregressive (VAR) model is constructed. Thailand is selected as ground for investigation. Apart from the bi-directional causality, the results also show prospective positive impacts of the cloud computing adoption on the growth of output, employment, and labour productivity. Despite the macroeconomic benefits, some policy implications include the encouragement of the cloud computing adoption in universities and banks in order to realise the benefit of scalability and efficient usage of computing resources. --Cloud computing,Macroeconomic indicators,Forecast,Thailand

A Case Study on the Adoption of Cloud Computing in Malaysia from The Perspectives of Cloud Providers

The objective of this study is to discover the perspectives of cloud providers towards cloud computing adoption in Malaysia in terms of the challenges faced by cloud providers and reasons for the adoption. Data were collected through semi structured interviews with three cloud providers. The findings indicated security concern, difficulties in learning cloud computing infrastructure, changes in IT roles, high cost of bandwidth and life span of IT equipment as challenges faced by cloud providers in providing cloud service in Malaysia. This study also discovered cloud scalability, end-to-end management, high level security, and customizable as the reasons on cloud computing adoption. The findings of this study help people to understand more about the current situation of cloud computing adoption in Malaysia. Keywords—cloud adoption, cloud computing, cloud providers, Malaysia

Adoption of Cloud Computing by Firms in Kenya: The Role of Institutional Pressures

While there is substantial literature on the adoption of IT innovations based on utility computing, there is a dearth of studies on cloud computing adoption by business organizations. Given that cloud computing adoption has been steadily increasing in Kenya, this study aim to investigate the determinants of cloud computing adoption from an institutional perspective. The relationship between institutional pressures and cloud computing adoption was evaluated and tested using structural equation modelling (PLS SEM). A firm level cross sectional survey was conducted on a sample of 93 firms in the financial, manufacturing, and ICT sectors. The results indicate that coercive and normative pressures have a significant positive relationship with cloud computing adoption. The hypothesis that mimetic pressures have a relationship with cloud computing adoption was not supported. A major implication of this study is that professional and standards bodies do influence technology adoption through normative pressures

Factors influencing cloud computing adoption in small and medium enterprises

Cloud computing offers information technology (IT) infrastructure, platform, and various applications via the Internet with minimum start-up cost, network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources, and pay-per-use services. Although the potential for cloud computing is evident and much of the extant research has been carried out on cloud computing adoption, empirical studies on the factors that influence cloud computing adoption in the Malaysian Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are, however, lacking. The objective of this study was to examine the factors that influence cloud computing adoption by the SMEs.We conducted a quantitative survey-based study to examine the relationship between perceived benefits, top management support, IT resources, external pressure, and cloud computing adoption.A free-form comment provided at the end of each section of the survey questionnaire was treated as qualitative data. We find that IT resources and external pressure significantly influence cloud computing adoption. Nonetheless, there is not enough evidence to support perceived benefits and top management support as significant factors of cloud computing adoption

Cloud Computing Adoption in the South African Public Sector

Scholars have touted a variety of benefits for adopting cloud computing solutions in the public sector. However, the  adoption of cloud computing has been low in the South African (SA) government context. This study investigates the factors influencing cloud computing adoption within the SA public sector. The study adopted a case study approach. The research was informed by the Technological Organisational Environmental (TOE) and the Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) theoretical frameworks to understand the trajectory of cloud computing adoption. Primary data was collected using a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews with respondents from government departments. Additionally, secondary data from government Information Technology (IT) policies and strategic documents was analysed. The results highlighted that the enablers that are critical for cloud adoption include cloud computing policy, skills, IT infrastructure and financial support. The barriers that are hindering cloud adoption are related to security risks, network connection, cloud computing policy, costs and budget availability, among others. The identified benefits that may be realised through cloud adoption include enhanced service improvement, cost savings, high system availability, green IT, centralised and shared services and accessibility. The study proposes several guiding principles for cloud computing adoption in the public sector

Cloud computing adoption in regional councils

Cloud computing is becoming increasingly important in information technology as an enabler for improved productivity, efficiency and cost reduction; and is expected to offer benefits for public sector organisations. Cloud computing has the potential to improve the reliability and scalability of information technology systems, which allows organisations such as regional municipal governments to focus more on their core business and strategy. Research about the use of cloud computing in the public sector in general is limited. There is a lack of exploratory studies that provide an in-depth and holistic investigation of the factors perceived to influence the adoption of cloud computing. There are no empirical studies about the factors that are perceived to influence the adoption of cloud computing in reference to Australia. This research aimed at exploring perceptions of the potential for value creation from cloud computing in regional councils, to identify factors that are likely to influence adoption of cloud computing including factors that need to be considered when planning to adopt cloud, anticipated benefits of cloud adoption, and challenges and issues that faced cloud adoption. This research aimed to improve understandings related to the factors that influence cloud computing adoption decision making in regional municipal governments. The research employed a mixed method approach (qualitative and quantitative). In-depth interviews of Australian councils’ IT managers were conducted with the aim of providing insights into the factors that are perceived likely to influence adoption of cloud computing including factors that need to be considered when planning to adopt cloud, anticipated benefits of cloud adoption, and challenges and issues that faced cloud adoption. Survey data from 480 IT staff across 47 local government councils were collected to confirm the findings of the exploratory stage. The factors that were examined included: compatibility, complexity, cost, security concern, top management support, organisation size, government regulation, and information intensity. The findings of this research are expected to assist in making investment decisions on cloud computing adoption