adoption of cloud computing by smes in india: a study … adoption of cloud computing by smes in...

8

Click here to load reader

Upload: haduong

Post on 24-May-2018

214 views

Category:

Documents


1 download

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: Adoption of Cloud Computing by SMEs in India: A study … Adoption of Cloud Computing by SMEs in India Proceedings of the Nineteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Chicago,

Bhat Adoption of Cloud Computing by SMEs in India

Proceedings of the Nineteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Chicago, Illinois, August 15-17, 2013. 1

Adoption of Cloud Computing by SMEs in India: A study of the Institutional Factors

Completed Research Paper

Jyoti M. Bhat

Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore

[email protected]

ABSTRACT

Cloud computing’s potential to be transformational depends on the ecosystem developed for adoption. Given the evolving

nature of the technology, the adoption of cloud comes with many issues which organizations and regulators are grappling

with. The on-demand, elastic nature of the cloud based services is projected as being most suitable for Small and Medium

Enterprises (SMEs). In this paper we analyze the adoption of cloud computing by Indian SMEs using transaction cost

economics. As IT usage by Indian SMEs has not been wide spread, we use the factors and inhibitors of IT adoption by SMEs

and compare them with the transaction costs related to cloud computing for SMEs to identify institutional factors required to

ensure success of cloud adoption by SMEs.

Keywords

Cloud Computing, Adoption, Transaction Cost, Institutional Factors.

INTRODUCTION

Cloud computing is a disruptive technology which allows the IT industry to offer computing as a utility. Cloud computing

allows software and hardware to be delivered as on-demand services over the internet in a pay-as-you-use model (Armbrust

et al, 2009, NIST, 2009). The ability to access software and hardware on-demand as against having to invest in owning and

maintaining them on-premise is the main advantage of cloud computing especially for the small and medium enterprises

(SME). SMEs are typically more flexible in using and adopting emerging technologies as their existing IT investments are

not huge, and hence can adopt cloud computing faster. This has been the case in developed countries like UK, US and the

European Union.

The Indian government is a strong supporter of cloud computing and is encouraging its adoption by SMEs. The on-demand,

elastic capacity and usage-based-billing access to software and hardware services will enable Indian SME to focus on their

core business and increase their competitiveness. The above simplistic conceptualization of cloud computing as a utility and

general purpose technology, does not aid in appreciating the opportunities and complex challenges of adopting cloud

computing (Brynjolfsson, et al., 2010). Additionally, the current hype around cloud computing does not help users in

objectively evaluating its potential, costs and risks (Harris and Alter, 2010). Some of the concerns are related to privacy,

security, anonymity, support, capacity, lock-in, compliance, government surveillance, reliability, and liability. Efforts have

been made by governments (like in the US, Australia, European Union) to address many of these concerns. The Indian

government is also studying the need for a cloud policy and reviewing other related policies and regulations for modifications

required for cloud computing.

In this paper we analyze cloud computing adoption by SMEs in India from an institutional factors perspective. We provide a

background of existing studies and activities by the government. We also review the literature on cloud computing,

transaction cost economics, and IT usage by SMEs in India to provide the background for our analysis. We then use the

transaction cost perspective to understand the institutional factors required for usage of cloud computing by Indian SMEs.

BACKGROUND

In this section we provide an overview of cloud computing and its benefits and disadvantages. We conduct a literature review

of Transaction cost economics and its usage to analyze Information Systems and cloud computing. We identify the

transaction costs associated with cloud computing based on the survey. We identify the factors and inhibitors of IT usage by

SMEs through existing empirical studies and analyst reports.

Page 2: Adoption of Cloud Computing by SMEs in India: A study … Adoption of Cloud Computing by SMEs in India Proceedings of the Nineteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Chicago,

Bhat Adoption of Cloud Computing by SMEs in India

Proceedings of the Nineteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Chicago, Illinois, August 15-17, 2013. 2

Cloud Computing

“Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable

computing resources (for example, networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly

provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service-provider interaction.” (NIST, August 2009)

Cloud computing is an Internet based service model, where applications, hardware and data hosted by a third party is

provided on-demand to the user. The applications are referred to as “Software as a service” (SaaS), the hardware and

infrastructure is referred to as “cloud” (Armbrust et al, 2009). Armbrust et al. also define various terminologies of cloud

computing. A cloud available as a pay-as-you-go usage is called a Public cloud and the services sold are referred to as Utility

computing. The services can be accessed at three different levels –

• Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) – Computer processing time, servers, data storage, etc. are provided. These services

are typically used by the It group.

• Platform as a service (PaaS) – The development environment with programing language and tools is provided to

software developers. These are used to create new applications.

• Software as a service (SaaS) – There are several offerings at this level. Productivity enhancing applications like

Google docs, business process functionalities like Salesforce.com and applications that focuses on collaboration and

social networking like email, Facebook and LinkedIn.

The various parties involved in the cloud computing environment are cloud providers, cloud users, SaaS provider, SaaS user.

Large enterprises use similar cloud technologies and have their own dedicated hardware and software. While this is called

private or hybrid clouds (when same software infrastructure is used in a private cloud and in the public cloud) it does have

the same advantages of a public cloud. Some of the main advantages of public clouds are availability of “infinite” computing

resources on demand, lack of up-front commitment on resources and ability to ramp up and scale down resources as per need,

ability to pay per usage on a short-term basis (Armbrust et al, 2009). SMEs also benefit due to economies of scale at the

cloud provider end which helps in providing increased security and latest software products and upgrades. There are various

local and multinational (MNC) cloud service providers (CSP) in India (Kshetri, 2011). Amazon, Google, Microsoft and

VMware are the big MNC CSPs offering IaaS and PaaS. While some of these CSPs have local data centers in India, many of

them leverage their infrastructure across the world. Many Indian companies have partnered with these MNCs and act either

as cloud brokers or PaaS and SaaS providers. The big Indian IT services companies have partnered with the MNC PaaS and

SaaS providers and offer system integration and implementation services. Microsoft, Google, Webex and Salesforce.com are

some of the MNCs providing SaaS based offerings in India. There are a few Indian SaaS providers who target SME segment

with business process offerings like Sabrix (tax computation), Tally (accounting) and TCS (email to ERP solutions) (Zinnov

2010). There are many productivity enhancing tools and collaboration application available in the SaaS mode, many of which

are free and open source software. These are being used extensively by SMEs and retail customers in India.

Cloud computing requires different IT skills to develop and deploy applications on the cloud. These are specialized skills

related to architecture and design to leverage the elastic capacity and remote access to data and application. The potential of

cloud computing is realized only when the adopting businesses restructure their business models and organization structures

to leverage the capabilities of the cloud (Brynjolfsson, et al., 2010). The adoption of cloud is a cost and risk-based decision

and driven purely by technology benefits (Armbrust et al, 2009; Martens and Teuteberg, 2012). While cloud adoption implies

that the IT requirements of the organization are catered to by a third party, it differs from IT outsourcing in several aspects

(Chou and Chou, 2007; Xin and Levina 2008). IT outsourcing is a relationship contract where the organization still owns the

physical assets and maintains control over the IT decisions with the specific tasks being executed by the service providers. In

cloud computing, the computing assets are typically owned by the CSPs and organizations access these resources based on

need and pay as per usage without any time limitations. When viewed as a utility service, the cloud transactions ideally

should happen over the market and not be relationship based.

The uncertainties due to evolving cloud technologies, market based transactions, the need for investment decisions related to

physical, technical and computing assets, and the lack of regulations and government action are the factors to be considered

for analyzing cloud computing adoption. Hence transaction cost economics provides an apt lens to analyze these issues and

risks.

Transaction Cost Economics and Institutional Factors

Transaction cost economics (TCE) has been used by many Information Systems (IS) researchers to study the different issues

related to IS and organizations, like external coordination costs and firm size (Brynjolfsson, 1994), electronic markets and

Page 3: Adoption of Cloud Computing by SMEs in India: A study … Adoption of Cloud Computing by SMEs in India Proceedings of the Nineteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Chicago,

Bhat Adoption of Cloud Computing by SMEs in India

Proceedings of the Nineteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Chicago, Illinois, August 15-17, 2013. 3

hierarchies (Malone et al. 1987), internal coordination, IS and firm dimensions (Gurbaxani and Whang 1991) and, choice

between keeping IT systems in-house and outsourcing (Aubert, et al., 1996, Cheon et al., 1995). While TCE is now being

applied to understand the cloud computing adoption (Nuseibeh, 2011), especially SaaS application types, business models

and adoption (Benlian et al., 2009; Chou and Chou, 2007; Xin and Levina, 2008), there are limited studies on the factors

driving or inhibiting the adoption of cloud services (Hoberg et al. 2012).

TCE was first introduced by Coase in 1937, when he raised the question of why firms exist and, the learning and haggling

costs involved in market transactions. Williamson extended the work by analyzing the nature of these costs and the

governance choices. Williamson (1975) defined markets and hierarchies as two alternate governance structures (in addition to

other hybrid forms) and observed that organizations choose different governance mechanisms for the economic activities

based on the differential transaction costs. While choosing the governance structures, firms economize on the sum of product

costs and transaction costs (Williamson, 1981). When applying TCE to IT outsourcing and cloud adoption, the reduction in

production costs due to economies of scale at the producers’ end is balanced by the increased transactions costs related to

negotiating, contracting, monitoring and managing the outsourcing relation. The three dimensions of differential transaction

costs are frequency of transaction, uncertainty and asset specificity (Williamson, 1985). The propensity of organizations to

adopt cloud computing depends upon these three dimensions of the transaction cost. These dimensions are examined in detail

below and summarize in table 1.

Asset specificity in the context of cloud relates to the vendor lock-in due to firm data residing with the CSP and lack of

portability across CSP offerings due to standardization and interoperability issues. The transaction costs related to asset

specificity are vulnerability to price increases, reliability issues, CSPs financial stability (Zhang et al. 2010), uniqueness of IT

skills due to proprietary environments of the CSP and, switching costs (Sarkar and Young, 2011). A high degree of

customization requirement of the SaaS services from the firm can also be viewed as increasing the asset specificity

(Nuseibeh, 2011) in cloud adoption. Asset specificity increases transaction costs and hence negatively impacts the adoption

of cloud. Organizations will adopt cloud only for the IT operations and applications which are generic and have standard

offerings from CSPs. These are typically the productivity enhancing tools and collaboration applications.

Uncertainty refers to the degree of change in the firm’s requirements, and in the case of IT can be considered as the

complexity of the IT product or service. Unpredictability of the technology trends, service quality parameters like security

and privacy, scalability and elasticity, service-continuity, reliability and liability (Armbrust et al, 2009, Jaeger et al. 2008,

Sarkar and Young, 2011) increase uncertainty which increases the ex-ante costs of drafting, negotiating and framing the

cloud contracts. Reputation and fate sharing with other customers of the cloud is a unique aspect of uncertainty in cloud

computing (Armbrust et al, 2009). Blacklisting of the IP address of the CSP by spam-prevention services due to inappropriate

behavior of one of the CSP customers will impact all other users. There are currently no legal contractual arrangements

which can safeguard customers against this.

As the frequency of transactions increases firms have an incentive to internalize production to reduce the contracting costs

(Williamson, 1985). This characteristic of transactions is of particular interest to IS researchers due to the high transaction

volume electronic partnerships, though the implicit view point is contradictory to that of TCE. With the Internet and related

technologies, there are competitive advantages in externalizing many high volume transactions that can be executed

electronically (Chatterjee et al., 2006). IT vendors prefer customers with huge volume and frequency of transactions.

Williamson also made two behavioral assumptions of bounded rationality (leads to incomplete contracts) and opportunism.

The incomplete contracts and environmental changes lead to opportunistic behavior during the ex-post contractual stage.

Opportunistic behavior leads to reduced trust and hence failure of markets and the need to regulate. Economists explain

institutional arrangements from the perspective of economizing the transaction costs associated with negotiating, monitoring

and enforcing contracts (Williamson, 1985). The institutional factors like the formal laws and regulations and enforcement

mechanisms are means to reduce uncertainty by containing opportunistic behavior of the powerful agents, when mutual

negotiations are not possible. There are a few studies which have examined the role of policies and institutional factors

required for cloud computing (Jaeger et al., 2008) and the usage of existing regulations to handle the cloud (Ryan et al.,

2011). Many countries have already put forth policies for the cloud like “Cloud first” policy in US and the cloud computing

strategy by the Australian government. The European Commission has asked CSP to improve the contracts to address many

of the uncertainties associated with cloud usage. In India currently various policies and laws like the Information Technology

Act 2000, 2011 Information Technology Rules, The Indian Contract Law, the Credit Information Act of 2005 and Telecom

Regulatory Authority of India Act of 1997, provide laws and policies related to digital records, digital signatures,

cybercrimes, and data security. As such there is no legal framework in India to enforce contracts and penalize opportunistic

behavior by the cloud providers. Currently the various government departments are studying the need for a separate cloud

policy for India (CII, 2012). The CSPs locate their data centers and servers across global locations and hence the jurisdiction

Page 4: Adoption of Cloud Computing by SMEs in India: A study … Adoption of Cloud Computing by SMEs in India Proceedings of the Nineteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Chicago,

Bhat Adoption of Cloud Computing by SMEs in India

Proceedings of the Nineteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Chicago, Illinois, August 15-17, 2013. 4

of the contract and the local data-related regulations of the CSP locations may create difficulties for the cloud customer to

seek enforcement. From a sociological perspective institutional theory emphasizes how institutional arrangements confer

legitimacy and the actions of an entity are viewed as proper or appropriate within some socially constructed system of norms,

values, beliefs, and definitions (Scott, 2008). Hence institutions are the macro-level rules of the game which can be formal

(e.g. laws and regulation) as well as informal constraints (e.g. codes of conduct, social norms and culture) (North, 1991).

Though Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) is working to create awareness on cloud computing benefits and policy

formation, there are no focused industry associations and bodies facilitating cloud adoption in India.

TCE Dimensions Contributing factors to transaction costs

Asset Specificity Vendor lock-in due to data residing with CSP,

Lack of standardization and interoperability across CSPs

Proprietary environment of CSP leading to increased switching cost and unique IT skills

Increased customization of software services

Uncertainty Unpredictability of technology trends

Lack of clarity on the cloud service performance parameters

Data Privacy, security and compliance issues

Uncertainty related to liability, reputation and fate sharing

Frequency Smaller volume and frequency of transactions

Institutional factors

(Laws and regulations)

Lack of suitable rules to handle cloud computing requirements

Jurisdiction of cloud contracts

Local data-related regulations of the global CSP locations

Lack of industry bodies and agreements

Table 1: Summary of TCE dimensions and institutional factors of Cloud computing

IT Usage by Indian SMEs

Various studies by Indian industry bodies show that IT usage by SMEs is quite low (FCCI 2012). Among SMEs using IT

products, it was found that they use basic IT tools like spread sheets, document editors and email. While awareness of

advanced IT products exists with the SMEs, they do not adopt these products like ERP, SCM, etc., due to various reasons like

lack of in-depth knowledge of the products; substitute them with other generic IT tools and operations not large enough to

justify the investment (FCCI 2012). An IDC India report finds that SME market contributes a larger share in desktops and

printers as compared to storage and servers (IDC, 2011). This implies that the infrastructure needs of SMEs are limited as

they do not process huge amounts of data.

Kannabiran and Dharmalingam (2011) in their study of the auto ancillary SME industry find that the low adoption of

advanced IT products is due to lack of in-house IT skills, financial constraints, lack of customized IT products and lack of

awareness of the available tools. These factors would be applicable to adoption of cloud computing as well. Kannabiran and

Dharmalingam also found that while competitive environment is the significant factor for adoption of advanced IT products,

access to financial resources or lowered cost of software would lead to adoption of ERP and other advanced IS products.

They also found that lack of supporting infrastructure and perceived risk of information security does not deter SMEs from

adopting advanced IT products.

SMEs are usually located in clusters and some of the infrastructure requirements like electricity and connectivity are provided

by the government in these locations. Information security requirements of SMEs are minimal as they own small amounts of

data and the intranet/extranet protocols can handle the security requirements of these firms. One of the main deterrents to

adoption of advanced IT products is the lack of IT manpower. SMEs are not able to attract personnel with the required IT

skills due to lower wages, and the attrition of people with IT skills to larger organizations and IT industry adds to their

disadvantage (Patibandla 1998). This also results in a lack of awareness of the available IT products and their functionalities.

Software product vendors design advanced products for large enterprises and these do not suit the needs of the SMEs.

Additionally most of the enterprises IT products need to be adapted to the Indian environment, as these are typically standard

Page 5: Adoption of Cloud Computing by SMEs in India: A study … Adoption of Cloud Computing by SMEs in India Proceedings of the Nineteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Chicago,

Bhat Adoption of Cloud Computing by SMEs in India

Proceedings of the Nineteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Chicago, Illinois, August 15-17, 2013. 5

products from global players. While there are many IT SME players which develop such products, there is a perception that

investment in software upgrades, maintenance and skill enhancements increase the total cost of ownership of IT.

Cloud computing with its advantages of low upfront investment, elastic capacity, access to latest software and upgrades, may

help SMEs in India adopt advanced IT products which will help them improve productivity and become globally competitive.

But are the environmental and the institutional factors supportive for SME adoption of Cloud computing in India?

CLOUD COMPUTING AND SMES IN INDIA

The cloud technologies and pricing models of the public clouds appear very attractive for SMEs to adopt IT in their

organizations and day-to-day activities. While India is known to leapfrog technology generations and adopt the latest

technology at a faster pace (like the mobile penetration in India), it would require a conducive environment and institutional

factors for SMEs to adopt cloud computing. They would have to make the leap from very basic in-house use of IT tools to

adopting cloud for advanced IT products. The role of government to facilitate IT innovations and the importance of

institutional factors in the diffusion of IT innovations is well established (King et al., 1994). Nelson (2009) in an advisory

document for the US government stressed the important role that governments can play in advancing the use of cloud

computing. Some of the actions mentioned by Nelson are- being ‘model users’, updating their IT procurement rules to

support procurement of systems with a cloud service model, and the need to encourage experimentation with the cloud.

Gartner (2010) identifies five roles government organizations could play in order to realize and maximize the benefits of

Cloud Computing - User, Provider, Broker, Storefront, and Regulator & Supervisor.

The Government of India is very supportive of cloud computing usage by SMEs and has initiated several projects to study the

need and requirements to setup cloud computing infrastructure in India. Project Baadal by the Department of Micro, Small

and Medium enterprises is one such project which is collecting IT usage data with the aim to provide cloud based services to

SMEs at low cost. The CII is seeking clarity on several policies to speed up cloud adoption with focus on both the supply and

demand side of cloud computing (CII, 2012). Most of the recommendations by CII are related to governing the service

quality, data and network privacy and ownership and taxes. While all of these are required for building capacity and creating

an ecosystem for cloud computing in India, they do not directly encourage cloud adoption by SMEs in India as the issues

involved are different for the SME segment. Below we compare the transaction costs of cloud computing and the factors

which inhibit and encourage IT adoption among SMEs to help us identify the institutional factors required to support cloud

adoption among SMEs.

• Lack of awareness of the benefits of IT, Cloud computing and advanced software products increases the uncertainty

and search costs for SMEs. There is a need to increase the awareness of SMEs on the benefits and usage of IT and

cloud computing through various programs and trainings. These activities can typically be taken up by industry

bodies and associations.

• The lack of IT skills and the unavailability of suitable advanced IT products for SMEs are inhibitors which

compound the asset specific transaction costs related to proprietary environment and increased customization. The

IT industry in India is more export-oriented and hence the unique skills required for cloud are not available to the

domestic IT market. Moreover the pricing models and rates of the export oriented Indian IT industry are very

expensive for the SME segment users. The global MNC do not yet find the Indian SME segment lucrative enough to

offer specific products to this market. Hence there is a need to encourage development of IT products and services

for the domestic market, especially the SME segment. This market for cloud SME products can be best catered to by

the SME IT sector using cloud based infrastructure. The IT skills required by SMEs can also be outsourced to the

SME IT firms. Hence there is a need to develop the SME IT sector which can focus on the domestic market.

• Lack of cloud specific policies to handle vendor lock-in and contractual safeguards are compounded for SMEs as

they lack the financial power and resources to take on the powerful global CSPs.

• The uncertainty related to data privacy in the cloud is negated by the lack of concerns related to information

security by the SMEs.

• Smaller volume and frequency of transactions of the SMEs increases the cost, but can be handled if SME clusters

adopt cloud as a group. This will require the SMEs to co-operate and group together in spite of the competitive

nature among them. Such cooperation provides negotiating power to the SMEs to procure domain specific products

and other requirements from the CSPs. Industry bodies can also facilitate the negotiation with the CSPs. One such

pilot has already been initiated in a SME cluster in West Bengal by the government along with the CII. The pay-as-

you-go pricing model of the cloud works in favor of the SMEs as it reduces the upfront financial investments

required for IT adoption. Better pricing can be negotiated if SMEs approach CSPs as a cluster or group.

Page 6: Adoption of Cloud Computing by SMEs in India: A study … Adoption of Cloud Computing by SMEs in India Proceedings of the Nineteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Chicago,

Bhat Adoption of Cloud Computing by SMEs in India

Proceedings of the Nineteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Chicago, Illinois, August 15-17, 2013. 6

• Jurisdiction of the cloud contracts and data-related regulations at the remote locations are aspects which can only be

handled through formal cloud regulations and rules by the respective Indian government departments.

The institutions forms, both formal and informal, required to support SME adoption of cloud computing in India can be

classified as markets, public and private ordering. Regulations by the government in the form of laws and legislations are

classified as public ordering and the process of setting of social norms by the parties involved in the regulated activity (in

some manner) is called private ordering. Table 2 provides a summary of the institutions identified above to encourage cloud

computing adoption by SMEs in India

Institutional form Purpose

Markets Encourage a market for software products and SaaS for SMEs with appropriate

incentives for players

Encourage domestic IT outsourcing to cater to the IT service requirements of

SMEs.

Public Ordering Regulatory body which can regulate the cloud providers and enforce cloud

contracts.

Private Ordering An industry body which can create awareness and promote cloud adoption

among SMEs, facilitate aggregation of cloud requirements and negotiate

contracts with CSPs.

Table 2: Institutions to support SME adoption of Cloud computing

CONCLUSION

The elastic nature and pricing model of cloud computing is claimed to be the reasons for SMEs to benefit from cloud

adoption. Given the financial constraints and lack of infrastructure needs due to smaller size and data of the SMEs, the

advantages do not resonate with the needs of SMEs. The primary benefit of cloud adoption for SMEs comes from the SaaS

offerings. But the lack of software products suitable for Indian SMEs and the other inhibitors of IT adoption may act as a

deterrent to the success of cloud among SMEs. We studied cloud computing and its implications to SMES using the theory of

transaction cost economics. Comparing the various dimensions of the transaction costs of cloud computing with the inhibitors

of IT adoption by SMEs helped us identify the institutional factors which may encourage cloud adoption by SMEs. The study

is limited as it depends on literature review and news articles related to actions taken by the government. Future work can

empirical verify the various parts of this study like the identification of the transaction costs for cloud computing and

inhibitors of cloud adoption by SMEs. The current study aims to inform policy making on some aspects specific to SMEs

which may have been overlooked due to the overall focus on cloud computing adoption in India.

REFERENCES

Armbrust, M., Griffith, A. F., Joseph, A. D., Katz, R., Konwinski, A., Lee, G., et al. (2009) Above the Clouds: A Berkeley

View of Cloud Computing. UC Berkeley Reliable Adaptive Distributed Systems Laboratory .

Aubert, B. A., Rivard, S. and Party, M. (1996) A Transaction Cost Approach to Outsourcing Behavior: Some Empirical

Evidence. Information and Management, 30.

Benlian, A., Hess, T., and Buxmann, P. (2009) Drivers of SaaS adoption— an empirical study of different application types.

Business Information Systems Engineering, 1(5), 357–369.

Brynjolfsson, E., Hoffman, P. and Jordan, J. (2010) Cloud Computing and Electricity: Beyond the Utility Model,

Communications of the ACM, 53(5).

Brynjolfsson, E., Malone, T. W., Gurbaxani, V., Kambil, A. (1994) Does Information Technology Lead to Smaller Firms?,

Management Science, 40(12).

Chatterjee, D., Segars, A.H. and Watson, R.T. (2006) Realizing the promise of e-business: developing and leveraging

electronic partnering options. California Management Review, 48(4), 60-83.

Cheon, M. J., Varun G. and James T. C. Teng (1995) Theoretical Perspectives on the Outsourcing of Information Systems.

Journal of Information Technology, 10, 209-219.

Page 7: Adoption of Cloud Computing by SMEs in India: A study … Adoption of Cloud Computing by SMEs in India Proceedings of the Nineteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Chicago,

Bhat Adoption of Cloud Computing by SMEs in India

Proceedings of the Nineteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Chicago, Illinois, August 15-17, 2013. 7

Chou, D. C. and Chou, A. Y. (2007) Analysis of a new information systems outsourcing practice: software-as-a-service

business model. Information Systems and Change Management, 2(4), 392–405.

CII (2012) “The Indian Cloud Revolution”. Retrieved August 31, 2012 from www.cii.in/cloudreport

FCCI (2012) Usage of Information & Communication Technology (ICT) tools by Indian SMEs and its impact on their

business. Retrieved August 31, 2012 from http://www.ficci.com/sector-surveys.asp?secid=36

Gartner (2010) Five Roles for Government in Cloud Computing, Gartner Research.

Gurbaxani, V. and Whang, S. (1991) The Impact of Information Systems on Organizations and Markets. Communications of

the ACM , 34 (1).

Harris, J. G. and Alter, A. E. (2010) Six Questions Every Executive Should Ask about Cloud Computing. Retrieved August

30, 2012, from Accenture's Institute for High Performance: http://www.accenture.com/us-en/Pages/insight-cloud-computing-

six-questions-summary.aspx

Hoberg, P., Wollersheim, J. and Krcmar, H. (2012) The Business Perspective on Cloud Computing - A Literature Review of

Research on Cloud Computing, AMCIS 2012.

IDC (2011) India Enterprise Infrastructure for Small and Medium Business, Retrieved August 31, 2012 from

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=IDC_P23440

Jaeger, P.T., Lin, J. and Grimes, J. M., (2008) Cloud Computing and Information Policy: Computing in a Policy Cloud?,

Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 5(3).

Kannabiran, G. and Dharmalingam, P. (2012) Enablers and inhibitors of advanced information technologies adoption by

SMEs: An empirical study of auto ancillaries in India, Journal of Enterprise Information Management, 25 (2).

King, J.L., Gurbaxani, V., Kraemer, K.L., McFarlan, F.W., Raman, K.S. and Yap, C.S. (1994) Institutional Factors in

Information Technology Innovation, Information Systems Research, 5(2), 139–169.

Kshetri, N. (2011) Cloud Computing in the Global South: drivers, effects and policy measures, Third World Quarterly, 32(6),

997-1014.

Malone, T.W., Benjamin, R.I. and Yates, J. (1987) Electronic markets and electronic hierarchies: Effects of information

technology on market structure and corporate strategies. Communications of the ACM, 30(6).

Martens, B., and Teuteberg, F. (2012) Decision-making in cloud computing environments: A cost and risk based approach.

Information Systems Frontiers, 14(4), 871-893.

NIST, (2009) (National Institute of Standards and Technology). Working Definition of Cloud Computing. US Government.

Nelson, M. (2009) The Cloud, the Crowd, and Public Policy. Issues In Science And Technology, 25, 4.

North, D.C., (1991). Institutions. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 5(1), 97-112

Nuseibeh, H. (2011) Adoption of Cloud Computing in Organizations. AMCIS 2011.

Patibandla, M. (1998) Structure, organizational behavior, and technical efficiency: The case of an Indian industry. Journal of

Economic Behavior and Organization. 34.

Ryan, P.S., Merchant, R. and Falvey, S., (2011). Regulation of the cloud in India. Journal of Internet Law, 15(4).

Sarkar, P. and Young, L. (2011) Sailing the cloud: a case study of perceptions and changing roles in an Australian university,

ECIS 2011.

Scott, W. R. (2008) Institutions and organizations: ideas and interests (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage

Williamson, O. E. (1981) The Economics of Organization: The Transaction Cost Approach. American Journal of Sociology,

87.

Williamson, O. E. (1985) Transaction-Cost Economics: The governance of Contractual Relations. The Journal of Law and

Economics, 22-24.

Xin, M. and Levina N. (2008) Software-as-a-Service Model: Elaborating Client-side Adoption Factors, ICIS 2008.

Page 8: Adoption of Cloud Computing by SMEs in India: A study … Adoption of Cloud Computing by SMEs in India Proceedings of the Nineteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Chicago,

Bhat Adoption of Cloud Computing by SMEs in India

Proceedings of the Nineteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Chicago, Illinois, August 15-17, 2013. 8

Zinnov (2010) Cloud Computing in India - Opportunities and way forward”. Retrieved March 20, 2012, from

www.zinnov.com

Zhang, Q., Cheng, L. and Boutaba, R. (2010) Cloud computing: state-of-the-art and research challenges. Journal of Internet

Sev Appl. , 1, 7-18.