Exploring Cloud Computing Adoption in Higher Educational Environment: An Extension of the UTAUT Model with Trust

Abstract

The latest advancements in digital technologies have pushed most enterprises and individuals to purposefully and proactively pursue and adopt a new technology format called "cloud computing" as a key strategy for development and growth for the benefit of achieving sustainable competitive advantage in increasingly today’s dynamic, competitive and turbulent business environments. Cloud computing has been recently growing rapidly. This study intends to investigate important factors that influence students’ intentional behavior to adopt cloud computing within the context of Jordan’s higher education system. The cloud technology can provide potentially valuable benefits to the educational and learning processes by increasing learning and teaching agility and reducing the cost of infrastructure and information technologies. To realize the objectives of the current empirical analysis, a framework based on the popular UTAUT is proposed and extended by integrating the trust dimension. Empirical data were collected via a paper-based questionnaire from university students in Jordan. A valid 412 datasets have been involved in validating the model using WarpPLS 5.0 statistical tool. The empirical findings demonstrate that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, and trust affect students’ intention to adopt cloud computing. Empirical findings also conclude that the actual use behavior is directly affected by both the students’ intention and facilitating conditions. Some moderating effects of gender, age, experience, and voluntariness of use are present. This model explains a total of 47% of the variance in behavioral intention to adopt cloud computing. Theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and future research directions are addressed