A General Framework for Cloud Computing Adoption in Organizations: A Systematic Literature Review

Cloud computing (CC) has come a long way from when the term was first coined in the early 2000’s to where it is now. Its increasing maturity, the benefits that come with it and the relative advantage it has over traditional in-house systems has made it an attractive proposition for organizations. However, it being a relatively new phenomenon coupled with its perceived risks and challenges discourages adoption. This uncertainty is further exacerbated by cloud computing’s lack of standards and the relative lack of general and comprehensive cloud adoption frameworks in literature. This trade-off between benefits and risks has subsequently created a dilemma for organizations on how to approach cloud adoption. Hence, what factors should organizations consider when adopting cloud computing? This study aims to fill this research gap by proposing a general framework for organizations and identify factors which should be considered when adopting cloud computing. An initial literature review of technology adoption models was carried out to design a framework which would serve as a chassis for the factors retrieved from the systematic literature review. The resulting model was heavily based on the TechnologicalOrganizational-Environmental model (TOE) and the Diffusion of Innovations model (DOI) which are models commonly used to explain technology adoption. The systematic literature review was used to retrieve the cloud adoption factors. 51 primary studies out of a total of 1623 papers were found relevant and were retained for analysis. This yielded a total of 194 unique tertiary adoption factors. 65 technological factors, 64 organizational factors, 61 environmental factors, and 4 individual factors. These factors were then classified into unifying themes called secondary factors. There was a total of 26 secondary factors; 9 technological factors, 7 organizational factors, 8 environmental factors, and 2 individual factors. The study found technological factors to be the most significant factors affecting adoption, while individual factors had the least significance. Specifically, relative advantage, top management support, compatibility, and complexity were found to be the most significant factors affecting cloud computing adoption.