Factors Affecting the Adoption of Cloud Computing in the Government Sector: A Case Study of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Cloud computing technology can play an important role in the public sector organisations since it decreases the cost of using information technology (IT) services and also has several other benefits. This paper aims to examine a range of factors affecting the cloud computing adoption by governments. In a case study of Saudi government organasations, a survey was conducted and four Saudi organisations participated in the study. The survey was theoretically designed based on the literature. An online survey was conducted and 169 respondents participated from different levels of an organisation. A quantitative analyses of the data were processed from descriptive and one-way frequency statistics to inferential and regression analysis. Nineteenth hypotheses were tested and key findings were that 85.80% of the respondents supported the adoption of cloud computing technology in their organisation, while 97.63% perceived its usefulness as the most important factor in adopting cloud computing. 95.26% of the respondents also perceived service quality and security as an important factor in the adoption of cloud computing. Inferential analyses show that the respondents who consider service quality as an important factor in the adoption of cloud computing have a statistically significant lower adoption attitude.