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Top1. Introduction
The latest developments in technology made it possible for organizations to substantially reduce their cost and bring more flexibility to their operations. Cloud computing technology is a new phenomenon that has recently gathered significant attention by scholars and practitioners. Cloud computing (CC) is considered as an important evolution of information systems (IS) technology and one of the emerging topics in the field of information science. It has many advantages and attractive characteristics such as flexibility, massive scalability, global access, reliability, and cost effectiveness (Oliveira et al., 2014). Cloud computing is a type of computing service that can provide IT services on demand such as computing power and data storage. Managers and IT officers should focus that their organizations implement cloud computing technology (Obeidat & Turgav, 2012). This would contribute to reducing their costs of IT infrastructure, and improving communication, scalability and business continuity (Yeboah-Boateng & Essandoh, 2014). It would also allow users to share their information easily and find new experiences through cloud computing system (Odeh et al., 2017).
Many organizations are utilizing cloud computing applications and services to gain competitive advantage or survive in the market or information industry (Garrison et al., 2012; Oliveira et al., 2014). Even though many individuals are using cloud applications, the organizational decision to adopt a technology does not imply that users will do the same. Based on that, users’ adoption of cloud computing became a crucial factor and a popular research topic. It is important to identify and understand the factors influencing users’ adoption of cloud computing. Individuals are the heart of organizational success. Another factor that emphasizes the importance of adopting CC is the popularity of public cloud service providers and the wide spread of free services (like Google and Apple services associated with their free e-mail and phone or tablet purchases.) Such direction makes the adoption of CC by individuals an important factor. Issues related to such technology are different from other research previously conducted in the technology adoption domain. Cloud computing is a different technology that popular desktop/online technologies like local applications or websites).
The major objective of this study is to predict the major factors influencing online users' intention to adopt cloud computing platforms in Jordan. This study will try to answer the following research question:
This study proposed a research model that included perceived security, service quality, cost reduction, information technology background and perceived control as the major expected predictors of users' intention to adopt cloud computing technology. The following section will review the literature related to cloud computing followed by the research method. Section 4 will depict the data analysis and discussion followed by conclusions and future work.
Top2. Literature Review
Technology adoption is one of the major challenges influencing organizations. Cloud computing adoption is still in its early stages in Jordan and is resisted by many factors (Al-Rousan & Hashish, 2016). The majority of research in this area focused on exploring the factors influencing the adoption of such technology from an organizational perspective. Research concluded to the following factors which influence the adoption decision: Cost reduction, top management support, IT readiness and government support, trialability, competence of cloud vendors, perceived trust, resistance to new technology, compatibility and existence of IT infrastructure (Al-Sharafi et al., 2017; Yeboah-Boateng & Essandoh, 2014). The majority of these studies also focused on small and medium enterprises more than large organizations or individuals. The research model of this study hypothesized that perceived security, service quality, cost reduction, information technology background, and perceived control are the major predictors influencing the adoption of cloud computing from online users’ perspective in Jordan.