Contractual and relational governance, ICT skills and organization adaptations, and cloud computing benefits

Abstract

Cloud Computing (CC) has high potential to offer to firms important benefits, concerning both costs reduction, and in general efficiency improvements, as well as innovation facilitation and support. However, these benefits are not straightforward and automatically generated; their realization as well as their magnitude will depend on a variety of factors. Nevertheless, limited empirical research has been conducted in order to identify CC benefits’ determinants. This paper contributes to filling this research gap. It empirically investigates the effects of a) the contractual and relational governance of firm’s relationships with its CC services providers, and b) the adaptations of the skills of firm’s ICT personnel, as well as its internal ICT organization, to this new CC paradigm, on the magnitude of CC benefits. Our study uses data collected through a questionnaire from 115 Greek firms using CC services. It has been concluded that all the above four examined factors impact positively the benefits firms obtain from CC; the effect of the adaptation of the skills of firm’s ICT personnel is the strongest, followed by the effect of the relational governance.