Cloud Ecological Diffusion Research

In recent years,cloud computing has gradually become a strategic focus of development and application in the information technology(IT)industry as an on-demand service owing to its high scalability and inexpensive information service model.On one hand,traditional information technology companies have shifted to cloud computing and become cloud service providers.On the other hand,cloud computing has become the basis for their digital transformation,and the migration to the cloud has become major IT expense.In addition,The Chinese government has formulated a series of policies to encourage enterprises to adopt cloud services,and supports core enterprises to play a demonstration role to drive industries and regions to adopt cloud services.Therefore,the innovation diffusion of cloud services presents a cloud ecology diffusion model with the participation of cloud service providers,enterprises and governments.Based on the aforementioned context,by reviewing relevant literature on cloud computing adoption,this thesis finds that research on cloud computing adoption at the enterprise level seldom considers the role played by cloud service providers.So this thesis gets the first research question,that is,how does cloud service providers affect the diffusion of cloud services at the enterprise level? Furthermore,by reviewing the relevant literature on technological innovation diffusion,this thesis find that there is a lack of integrated research on the impact of multiple participants in the cloud ecology on its diffusion.Thus,the second research question entertained in this study explores the impact of each participant in the cloud ecology on the diffusion of cloud ecology.Based on the relevant research results at home and abroad,this thesis comprehensively uses the methods of literature research,qualitative research,and large sample statistics,and based on the innovation diffusion theory and institutional theory,from the two levels of enterprises and regions,makes an in-depth study on the basic problem of "cloud ecology diffusion".Specifically,the research work presented in this thesis can be primarily classified into the following three aspects:(1)As cloud service providers play an important role in the process of cloud access,this thesis proposes the concept of "cloud service capability" and develops its scale.Because the existing literature does not answer how cloud service providers affect cloud diffusion at the enterprise level,it is very valuable to study the impact of cloud service capabilities on cloud ecology diffusion from the perspective of cloud service providers.Therefore,this thesis first constructs the concept of "cloud service capability",then via in-depth interviews with 7 cloud service providers and 5 user enterprises,obtains a large number of first-hand qualitative data,and develops the initial scale by using the coding technology and data structure technology in the grounded theory.Then,this thesis strictly abides by the general process of the scale development,through the distribution of questionnaires,data collection and pretest,reliability and validity test and empirical test,and finally generates a formal scale to measure the cloud service capability.(2)This thesis measures the impact of cloud service providers' service capabilities on cloud ecology diffusion at the enterprise level,including their impact on the adoption and continued use of cloud computing.After developing the concept of cloud service capability and its scale,this thesis empirically tests the impact of cloud service capability on enterprises' adoption of cloud computing from the perspective of cloud service providers.In this thesis,132 cloud service providers and 837 cloud companies were collected by the way of paired data collection,and the hypothesis was empirically tested by structural equation.It was found that the IT technology ability,security ability,customer professional ability,marketing ability,consulting ability,platform ability and response ability of cloud service providers had a significant impact on cloud ecology diffusion and continued use.(3)Based on institutional theory,this thesis empirically studies the influence of government,core enterprises and cloud service industry on the cloud ecology diffusion from the region level.In this thesis,the government,core enterprises and cloud service industry are identified as the research objects.137 districts and counties in Shandong Province are selected as the research samples.Based on institutional theory,the factors that affect the cloud ecology diffusion of these three types of participants are identified,and explanatory variables are constructed for these factors.Then,regression analysis is used to verify the impact of these factors on the breadth and depth of cloud ecology diffusion from the region level.The empirical results show that government policies,core enterprises and the maturity of cloud service industry have a significant impact on the depth and breadth of the diffusion of cloud ecology in the region.In conclusion,this thesis makes an empirical study on the influencing factors of cloud ecology diffusion from the enterprises and regions level.It is found that at the enterprise level,the service capacity of cloud service providers will have a very important impact on cloud ecology diffusion.At the regional level,government policies,core enterprises and cloud service providers all play an important role.In addition,the research of this thesis shifts the research perspective of cloud diffusion from the adopter to the cloud service provider,and develops the concept of cloud service capability,which can continue to be used in future research to study cloud service absorption,business alignment,value creation,etc.In practical,the conclusion of this thesis will also provide a reference for governments at all levels to formulate policies of cloud computing,for enterprises to choose cloud service strategies and cloud service providers' development strategies.