A quantitative study of the relationship between leadership practice and strategic intentions to use cloud computing

The purpose of this quantitative correlational cross-sectional research study was to examine a theoretical model consisting of leadership practice, attitudes of business process outsourcing, and strategic intentions of leaders to use cloud computing and to examine the relationships between each of the variables respectively. This study investigates the propensity of leaders to combine business process outsourcing with cloud computing for competitive innovation by surveying a sample of Information Technology managers and directors of medium-sized enterprise firms across all industries in the United States. The application of Structural Equation Analysis (SEM) to the survey data from respondents' revealed that the theoretical model had a borderline unacceptable fit, the relationship between leadership practice and intention to use cloud computing was positively correlated, the relationship between leadership practice and attitudes toward business process outsourcing was not correlated, the relationship between attitudes toward business process outsourcing and strategic intentions to use cloud computing was positively correlated, and the attitudes toward business process outsourcing had no mediating effect on the relationship between leadership practice and strategic intentions of leadership to use cloud computing. The findings of this study have implications for leadership intending to optimize their business processes with cloud computing for strategic advantage.