International Journal of Research in Advent Technology, Vol.2, No.

4, April 2014
E-ISSN: 2321-9637

Factors Influencing Professionals’ Decision for Cloud

Computing Adoption
Authors: Suman Kishore Mathur1, Tejal V Dhulla2
Assistant Professor - Dr. V. N. Bedekar Institute of Management Studies, Thane (Mumbai)

Abstract
Technology adoption is a process that includes knowledge, awareness and usage of the technology. According to Bridges
toTechnology Corp. (2005), technology adoption process comprises- awareness, assessment, acceptance, learning and
usage. This study analyses the behavioral approach of ‘Chartered Accountants’ (CAs) towards adoption of Cloud
computing. UTAUT2 model is used for the study, which is an extension of UTAUT model. According to Venkatesh
et.al. UTAUT model explained about 70% of the variance in behavioral intention to use a technology and about 50% of
the variance in technology use. This study analyses the correlation among the constructs of UTAUT2 model and the
impact of these constructs for adoption of Cloud computing by CAs.

Keywords: Cloud computing, UTAUT, Chartered Accountants, Technology

1. INTRODUCTION
Developments in technology drive users to adopt and According to Taylor (2010) technology adoption is a
make best use of the same. The move from one process of search and selection which is influenced by
technology to other is a challenge because of several social status, availability, individual belief and
characteristics viz. market impact, political impact, mobility. CA Rafeq (2011), stated that CAs understand
personal intention, compatibility and availability of the Cloud computing concept, its services, deployment
resources. Earlier, a diary was used for information, models and risk management. That is why CAs use
addresses, locations et. al. but today we can manage by Cloud services not only for tax filing but also providing
using a portable ‘SMART PHONE’ with GPS and information and solutions to their clients.
manage it , in and outside the country. Technology has Many theoretical models have been used by the
become a hand held tool for gathering information and researchers for analyzing the behavioral approach of
communication. Technology user has more and more users towards technology adoption and use. To
information. Technology has power to centralize and understand the professionals group i.e. Chartered
decentralize the power of information and Accountants’ approach towards adoption of Cloud
communication (Lessig, 2001). Professionals are more computing, we have used UTAUT2 (Unified Theory of
alert towards the technology change. They examine and Acceptance and Use of Technology) model (Venkatesh,
analyze the implications, and after that adopt the same 2012) for this study. UTAUT2 model is an extension of
to increase the efficiency of their work. This study UTAUT model. This model is being used by
analyses the behavioral approach of ‘Chartered researchers for analyzing the user acceptance towards
Accountants’ (CAs) towards adoption of Cloud technology. UTAUT model includes four constructs
computing1. Technology adoption is a process that viz. performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social
includes knowledge, awareness and usage of the influence and facilitating conditions. These four
technology. According to Bridges to Technology Corp. constructs contemplate to fundamental determinants i.e.
(2005), technology adoption process comprises- behavior usage and behavior intention. Further, direct
awareness, assessment, acceptance, learning and usage. determinants determine the influence of age,
experience, and voluntariness. According to Venkatesh
et.al. UTAUT model explained about 70% of the
1
Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand variance in behavioral intention to use a technology and
network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources about 50% of the variance in technology use.
(e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can In the UTAUT2 model (Venkatesh,2012) focus is on
be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort
consumer usage context. That is why three constructs
or service provider interaction. Source NIST -Peter Mell & Tim
viz. HM, PV and HB have been included to understand
Grance, 2009.
the strong key points related to the adoption of new
technology. Further for our study we have removed age
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 International Journal of Research in Advent Technology, Vol.2, No.4, April 2014
E-ISSN: 2321-9637
(demographic variable) , only two variables i.e. gender Definition
and experience are being included in the model as Construct
shown in Figure 1 below. Behavior The degree to which a person has
Following objectives have been addressed in this study Intention formulated conscious plans to perform
- (BI) or not perform some specified future
1. To understand the UTAUT2 model context. behavior. (Venkatesh, et.al. 2003).
2. To identify the constructs influencing the adoption Usage Individual's positive or negative feeling
of Cloud computing among professional (CAs). Behavior about performing the target behavior For
3. To analyze the influence of UTAUT2 models on (UB) example - using a system (Venkatesh,
adoption of Cloud computing adoption among et.al. 2003).
professionals (CAs). Performan The degree to which an individual
4. Gender, experience and expenditure influence on ce believes that adopting the technology
the main constructs of UTAUT2 model. Expectanc will help him or her to increase the work
y (PE) performance (Venkatesh, et.al. 2012).
Proposed Research Model Effort The degree of ease associated with the
Expectanc use of the technology (Venkatesh, et.al.
Figure : 1 Proposed Model y (EE) 2012).
Social The degree to which an individual
Performance influence perceives that it is important others
Expectancy (SI) believe he or she should use the new
technology (Venkatesh, et.al. 2012).
Effort Expectancy Facilitatio The degree to which an individual
n believes that an organizational and
Condition technical infrastructure exists to support
Social Influence (FC) use of the system (Venkatesh, et.al.
2012).
Hedonic It is defined as an enjoyment or
Facilitating Use Motivatio happiness resultant from using a new
Behavioral
Conditions Behavior n (HM) technology and play significant part in
Intension
(BI) (UB)
determining new technology adoption
Hedonic (Brown and Venkatesh 2005).
Motivation
Price It refers to the cost associated with the
Value purchase of device and service, which
Price Value (PV) user has to bear (Venkatesh, et.al. 2012).

Habit Habit It is defined as behavior. The degree to

(HB) which a person has formulated conscious
plans to perform or not perform some
specified future behavior (Venkatesh,
et.al. 2012).
Table : 1 Constructs Definition
Gender Experience
Major Hypothesis

Hypothesis 1: All seven constructs (PE,EE,

The key theme of the study is to identify influencing SI,FC,HM,PV, HB ) are influenced by gender,
constructs and impact of the determinants- gender, experience and expenditure.
experience and expenditure. Proposed model includes
seven constructs. Study will emphasis on the influence
Hypothesis 2: There is positive correlation among all
of these constructs on the behavior intension and usage seven constructs (PE,EE, SI,FC,HM,PV, HB ).
of professionals towards adoption of Cloud computing.
Research Data Analysis:
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E-ISSN: 2321-9637
The first Step carried before the statistical analysis of Total % of Cumulative %
hypothesis was to get the Reliability check of the Variance
instrument used in the research study: 1 5.080 46.185
Reliability Statistics 2 1.251 11.369
Cronbach' Cronbach's Alpha Based N of 3 .966 8.785 66.339
s Alpha on Standardized Items Items 4 .761 6.917 73.256
.869 .878 10 5 .712 6.469 79.725
6 .550 5.004 84.729
Table : 2 Reliability Statistics 7 .534 4.854 89.584
8 .409 3.723 93.306
The above calculation of coefficient of Cronbach's 9 .323 2.939 96.245
Alpha was carried out to test the instruments reliability, 10 .279 2.535 98.780
the methodology opted to determine and statistically 11 .134 1.220 100.000
calculate Cronbach's Alpha. It provides proportion of Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.
variance estimation in the test scores that can be
attributed to true score variance. Cronbach's Alpha is Table : 4 Total Variance
.869 for 10 items which indicates that the 86% items
have relatively high internal consistency. According to From the above table, Eigen value of the first factor is
Sattler, .60 is lowest and considered as unreliable, .70 is larger than the Eigen value of the next factor (5.080
considered relatively reliable and .80 and .90 is highly versus 01.251). Additionally, the first factor accounts
acceptable. (Note that a reliability coefficient of .70 or for 46.185% of the total variance. This suggests that the
higher is considered “acceptable" in most social science scale items are uni-dimensional.
research situations.) The starting point of factor analysis is a correlation
The Second step carried out in the data analysis was to matrix, in which the inter-correlations between the
check whether the sample size is appropriate with studied variables as Correlation Matrix are presented
number of variables taken for the study. In this regard, below in the Correlation Matrix Table 5.
we have used KMO and Bartlett's Test. KMO measures
the sampling adequacy (which should be greater than
0.5) for a successful factor analysis. Bartlett's test is
another indicator to measure the strength of relationship
among variables.

KMO and Bartlett's Test

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin .838
Measure of Sampling
Adequacy.

Bartlett's Test of Approx. Chi-Square 743.636

Sphericity
df 55
Sig. .000
Table : 3 KMO and Bartlett's Test

From the above KMO and Bartlett's Test analysis the

calculated value of .838 is considered to be
“acceptable" in most social science research situations.
Table 4 explains Total Variance as the next step in the Table : 5 Correlation Matrix
process of data analysis, which highlights the
contributing factor. It has been observed from Table 5 that Gender has
significant positive correlation with PE nodel i.e
Total Variance Explained r=+0.168 & PV is r =0.181 significant at the 0.05 level
Component Initial Eigenvalues (2-tailed).Therefore, we can state that gender has

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E-ISSN: 2321-9637
positive influence on PE & PV. On the other hand and usage Igbaria, Schiffman, & Wieckowski, 1994;
Experience as a variable has been found to have Karahanna & Straub, 1999). For example college
positive relation of influence on HB, where experience students prefer to watch a movie suggested by their
has negative relation with Gender, PE & PV and with friends and peers.
other variable Experience does not have any influence. FC is related to the conditions in which technology can
This statement partially accepts hypothesis 1 which be adapted by users. Cloud computing services are
states that all seven constructs (PE,EE, SI,FC,HM,PV, offered by service provider. Analysis indicates there is
HB ) are influenced by gender, experience and no impact of experience on technology usage. If these
expenditure. services are delivered to the user without any
From the Above table it can be stated that each of the interruption, it will increase the potential of behavior
variable ie. PE, EE, SI, FC, HM, PV, HB,BI & UB has intention towards Cloud computing adoption.
a positive correlation at 0.01 level of significance based In this research gender and experience have no
on which we accept hypothesis 2 which states that there influence on HM, which refers to the enjoyment and
is positive correlation among all seven constructs fun of using technology. It also includes motivation
(PE,EE, SI,FC,HM,PV, HB ). Hence we can conclude which explains the reason for adoption of technology.
that PE, EE, SI, FC, HM, PV & HB have an influence Many research studies have defined hedonic motivation
on BI and impacts UB for adoption of Cloud computing as the design of physical framework and trust
by professionals. (Kourouthanassis et al., 2008).
As its being observed in the analysis, PE is more According to the analysis, it was found that gender has
influential variable for adoption of cloud computing significant influence on PV for decision making
amongst the professionals, as stated by Venkatesh et al. towards Cloud computing adoption. Certainly, price
(2003) PE as “the degree to which an individual value (PV) is important for new technology adoption.
believes that using the system will help a person to One of the advantages of Cloud computing adoption is
attain gains in job performance”. It is also evident from reduced cost (NIST, 2012). Users access Cloud services
other models viz. TAM/TAM2 (Technology based on their needs, which can help to reduce costs.
Acceptance Model), TPB (Technology Planned Cost flexibility is an appealing proposition towards
Behavior) et.al. that PE is a strong predictor of adoption of Cloud computing. As per the IBM survey,
behavioral intention to adopt and use of information 31% of executives cited reduced fixed IT costs and pay
technology. Davis et. al. (1989) has mentioned in his as you use model, as two important variables for Cloud
study that PE decides the degree of adoption rate. The computing adoption.
potential of technology adoption will proliferate, if user HB refers to the experience of using technology. In the
believes technology adoption will increase the context of consumer decision making, women have
efficiency of their work. For example we know sending been found to exhibit greater sensitivity to details than
a SMS and an Email to a communicator is faster than a men exhibit when making judgments or decisions (e.g.,
speed post or courier. It indicates that performance Farina 1982; Meyers-Levy and Tybout 1989) but the
increased the possibility of adoption and usage of existing research does not supports the impact of gender
technology. on HB. Thus habit has no direct effect on technology
EE is related with ease of use, existing research study adoption and experience has significant positive impact
supports the same (Venkatesh & Morris, 2000; on HB. Venkatesh et al. (2012) mentioned habit as
Venkatesh, Morris, & Ackerman, 2000; Vankatesh et having direct and indirect effect through behavioral
al., 2003). Analysis shows that EE is second influential intention.
variable amongst professionals which relates to Conclusion
flexibility and availability. Cloud computing allows The result of the study shows that except gender and
user to access from anywhere-any time. On demand experience all other constructs viz. PE,EE,
nature of Cloud computing, influences usage of SI,FC,HM,PV, HB and determinants are correlated.
technology and intention of using technology. Cloud New paradigm defined as Cloud accounting, changed
computing service providers provide ready to use the approach of users because of performance
application/ software, which significantly impacts on expectancy. Ease of use brings agility in the work
behavior intention and usage. performance. It also helps to develop a collaborative
SI has significant impact on behavior intention and real time environment. Gender and experience are no
usage. Behavior intention and usage is influenced by longer important for adoption of Cloud computing
peers, family and society. Existing studies indicates that among CAs.
society influences users’ perception in both intention

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E-ISSN: 2321-9637
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__________________________________________________________________________________________
Biographical Sketch-
1
Suman Kishore Mathur is a Ph.D. scholar and currently associated as an Assistant Professor with Dr. V. N. Bedekar
Institute of Management Studies, Thane,(Mumbai)- Maharashtra. She has contributed/presented research papers at
national and international conferences in India and outside India. Her major interests are information technology
management, research methodology, general management and project management.
Email: mathurkishore.suman@gmail.com, smathur@vpmthane.org
2
Tejal V Dhulla is a Ph.D. scholar and currently associated as an Assistant Professor with Dr. V. N. Bedekar Institute of
Management Studies, Thane,(Mumbai)- Maharashtra. She has contributed/presented research papers at national and
international level in India. Her major interests are information technology management, industrial psychology and
human resource management.
Email : tejaldhulla@gmail.com, tdhulla@vpmthane.org

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