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Differential cloud adoption: A comparative case study of large enterprises and SMEs in Germany

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Abstract

Cloud computing is widely advertised as a technology-based service model and an emerging business model which is highly beneficial for the adopting organizations. But, academic landscape lacks sufficient empirical studies of cloud adoption at firm-level, and the existing cloud adoption factors are mostly anecdotal in nature. A multiple case study approach was used to extract and compare adoption characteristics of SMEs and large firms in Germany, based on the Technology-Organization and Environment (TOE) framework. The study shows that there exist important differences between SMEs and large enterprises regarding the cloud adoption factors. The results further show that large firms perceive characteristics of the cloud to be more complicated and not easy to implement compared to SMEs which contradicts the popular belief that large firms are forerunners in adopting innovations and, the widely publicized cost benefits of cloud services are perceived to be in favor of SMEs.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, TN, -600 036, India

    Surya Karunagaran & Saji K Mathew

  2. Chair of Information Systems, University of Passau, IT Center / International House, Room 261-262, Innstraße 43, 94032, Passau, Germany

    Franz Lehner

Authors
  1. Surya Karunagaran
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  2. Saji K Mathew
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  3. Franz Lehner
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Correspondence to Surya Karunagaran.

Appendix

Appendix

1.1 Constructs of TOE and DOE used in cloud adoption literature

Table 11 Constructs of TOE and DOE used in cloud adoption literature
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Karunagaran, S., Mathew, S.K. & Lehner, F. Differential cloud adoption: A comparative case study of large enterprises and SMEs in Germany. Inf Syst Front 21, 861–875 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-017-9781-z

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