Trust: A Requirement for Cloud Technology Adoption

Abstract

—Cloud computing is a recent model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources such as networks, servers, storage, applications, and services; that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. Studies have shown that cloud computing has the potential to benefit establishments, industries, national and international economies. Despite the enormous benefits cloud computing technology has the potentials of offering, several issues are making intended users to pause in adopting the usage of the technology. Users need to be assured of the safety and reliability of the technology while using it. This is needed to build confidence around the technology and reduce the level of anxiety. This research attempts to investigate the effect of trust in the adoption of the technology by formulating a trust model based on Expectancy Disconfirmation Theory model and Bayesian network. A simulation experiment was carried out to determine the significance of trust in the adoption of cloud technology.