IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/infsem/v15y2017i4d10.1007_s10257-017-0338-y.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An empirical investigation of the effects of firm characteristics on the propensity to adopt cloud computing

Author

Listed:
  • Euripidis Loukis

    (University of the Aegean)

  • Spyros Arvanitis

    (ETH Zurich, KOF Swiss Economic Institute)

  • Niki Kyriakou

    (University of the Aegean)

Abstract

Cloud computing (CC) is emerging as a new paradigm of resource acquisition and management of information and communication technologies (ICT) by firms, which can offer significant benefits, but at the same time can pose significant risks as well, so its adoption by firms has been lower than the initial expectations. Therefore, it is quite important to gain a better understanding of the factors affecting positively or negatively the adoption of CC. This paper presents an empirical investigation of the effects on a firm’s propensity to adopt CC of a set of firm characteristics referring to technological infrastructure, strategy, personnel skills, size and competition. Its conceptual foundation is the Technology, Organization and Environment theory of technological innovation adoption. Our study is based on data from 676 European manufacturing firms from the glass, ceramics and cement sectors, which have been collected through the e-Business Survey of the European Commission. The results indicate that in the above sectors ICT infrastructure sophistication has the strongest positive effect on CC adoption propensity among all examined firm characteristics. Furthermore, we have found that the existence of an ICT investment reduction strategy, the employment of specialized ICT personnel and the existence of previous experience of ICT outsourcing also have positive effects on a firm’s propensity to adopt CC. On the contrary, employees ICT skills, price and quality competition do not affect CC adoption propensity. Finally, our results also indicate that in the three examined sectors firm size has no significant influence on the propensity to adopt CC.

Suggested Citation

  • Euripidis Loukis & Spyros Arvanitis & Niki Kyriakou, 2017. "An empirical investigation of the effects of firm characteristics on the propensity to adopt cloud computing," Information Systems and e-Business Management, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 963-988, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:infsem:v:15:y:2017:i:4:d:10.1007_s10257-017-0338-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s10257-017-0338-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10257-017-0338-y
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10257-017-0338-y?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Philippe Aghion & Nick Bloom & Richard Blundell & Rachel Griffith & Peter Howitt, 2005. "Competition and Innovation: an Inverted-U Relationship," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(2), pages 701-728.
    2. Paloma Lopez-Garcia & Jose Manuel Montero, 2012. "Spillovers and absorptive capacity in the decision to innovate of Spanish firms: the role of human capital," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(7), pages 589-612, October.
    3. Willcocks, Leslie P. & Venters, Will & Whitley, Edgar A., 2013. "Cloud sourcing and innovation: slow train coming? A composite research study," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 54848, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Leslie Willcocks & Will Venters & Edgar A. Whitley, 2014. "Moving to the Cloud Corporation," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-137-34747-3.
    5. Leslie P. Willcocks & Mary C. Lacity, 2009. "The Practice of Outsourcing," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-230-24084-1.
    6. Jérôme Vandenbussche & Philippe Aghion & Costas Meghir, 2006. "Growth, distance to frontier and composition of human capital," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 11(2), pages 97-127, June.
    7. Benlian, Alexander & Hess, Thomas, 2011. "Opportunities and risks of Software-as-a-Service: Findings from a survey of IT executives," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 58025, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    8. Alexander Benlian & Thomas Hess & Peter Buxmann, 2009. "Drivers of SaaS-Adoption – An Empirical Study of Different Application Types," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 1(5), pages 357-369, October.
    9. Benlian, Alexander & Hess, Thomas & Buxmann, Peter, 2009. "Drivers of SaaS-Adoption – An Empirical Study of different Application Types," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 36690, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    10. Rivers, Douglas & Vuong, Quang H., 1988. "Limited information estimators and exogeneity tests for simultaneous probit models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 347-366, November.
    11. Spyros Arvanitis & Euripidis N. Loukis & Vasiliki Diamantopoulou, 2016. "Are ICT, Workplace Organization, and Human Capital Relevant for Innovation? A Comparative Swiss/Greek Study," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(3), pages 319-349, September.
    12. Anker Lund Vinding, 2006. "Absorptive capacity and innovative performance: A human capital approach," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(4-5), pages 507-517.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Julian Duran & Rubén Castillo, 2023. "Factors related to information and communication technologies adoption in small businesses in Colombia," Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 1-14, December.
    2. Abhishek Behl & Pankaj Dutta & Stefan Lessmann & Yogesh K. Dwivedi & Samarjit Kar, 2019. "A conceptual framework for the adoption of big data analytics by e-commerce startups: a case-based approach," Information Systems and e-Business Management, Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 285-318, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Spyros Arvanitis & Euripidis N. Loukis & Vasiliki Diamantopoulou, 2013. "Are ICT, Workplace Organization and Human Capital Relevant for Innovation?," KOF Working papers 13-333, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich.
    2. Daniel Veit & Eric Clemons & Alexander Benlian & Peter Buxmann & Thomas Hess & Dennis Kundisch & Jan Leimeister & Peter Loos & Martin Spann, 2014. "Business Models," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 6(1), pages 45-53, February.
    3. E. Loukis & N. Kyriakou & K. Pazalos & S. Popa, 2017. "Inter-organizational innovation and cloud computing," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 379-401, September.
    4. Rho, Yeirae & Fabrizi, Simona & Lippert, Steffen, 2021. "Employee characteristics, absorptive capacity and innovation," MPRA Paper 106407, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 04 Mar 2021.
    5. Chin-Lung Hsu & Judy Chuan-Chuan Lin, 2016. "Factors affecting the adoption of cloud services in enterprises," Information Systems and e-Business Management, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 791-822, November.
    6. Ravi Seethamraju, 2015. "Adoption of Software as a Service (SaaS) Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems in Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs)," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 475-492, June.
    7. Simón Ramírez & Juan Gallego & Mery Tamayo, 2020. "Human capital, innovation and productivity in Colombian enterprises: a structural approach using instrumental variables," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(6), pages 625-642, August.
    8. García-Pérez-de-Lema, Domingo & Ruiz-Palomo, Daniel & Diéguez-Soto, Julio, 2021. "Analysing the roles of CEO's financial literacy and financial constraints on Spanish SMEs technological innovation," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    9. Benedikt Martens & Frank Teuteberg, 2012. "Decision-making in cloud computing environments: A cost and risk based approach," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 871-893, September.
    10. Asatiani, Aleksandre & Apte, Uday & Penttinen, Esko & Rönkkö, Mikko & Saarinen, Timo, 2019. "Impact of accounting process characteristics on accounting outsourcing - Comparison of users and non-users of cloud-based accounting information systems," International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 1-1.
    11. Spyros Arvanitis & Florian Seliger, 2014. "Imitation versus innovation," KOF Working papers 14-367, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich.
    12. Henry van der Wiel & Harold Creusen & George van Leeuwen & Eugene Van der Pijll, 2012. "The Dutch Productivity Performance: Cross Your Border and Look Around," Chapters, in: Matilde Mas & Robert Stehrer (ed.), Industrial Productivity in Europe, chapter 14, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    13. Aghion, Philippe & Akcigit, Ufuk & Howitt, Peter, 2014. "What Do We Learn From Schumpeterian Growth Theory?," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 515-563, Elsevier.
    14. Kong, Dongmin & Zhang, Bohui & Zhang, Jian, 2022. "Higher education and corporate innovation," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    15. Olga Slivko & Bernd Theilen, 2014. "Innovation or imitation? The effect of spillovers and competitive pressure on firms’ R&D strategy choice," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 112(3), pages 253-282, July.
    16. Amable, Bruno & Ledezma, Ivan & Robin, Stéphane, 2016. "Product market regulation, innovation, and productivity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(10), pages 2087-2104.
    17. Orozco, Luis Antonio & Sanabria, John Alirio & Sosa, Juan Camilo & Aristizabal, Jeimy & López, Liliana, 2022. "How do IT investments interact with other resources to improve innovation?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 358-365.
    18. Matias Braun & Sebastián Bustos & Luis Felipe Céspedes, 2021. "Innovation Strategy and Economic Development," Working Papers 590, Center for Global Development.
    19. Frédérique Savignac, 2006. "The impact of financial constraints on innovation: evidence from french manufacturing firms," Cahiers de la Maison des Sciences Economiques v06042, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1).
    20. Gros, Daniel & Alcidi, Cinzia, 2014. "The Global Economy in 2030: Trends and Strategies for Europe," CEPS Papers 9142, Centre for European Policy Studies.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:infsem:v:15:y:2017:i:4:d:10.1007_s10257-017-0338-y. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.