I am pleased that my jointly authored paper that asks does proximity matter in cloud adoption? has now been published in the prestigious Journal of Information Technology.  

For researchers we develop an important proximity dimension to research on IT technology adoption with a focus on technologies which are assumed as remote or distant. We draw on the case of cloud computing to question existing assumptions.

For practitioners we show that those adopting cloud want a close interaction with cloud vendors, and so cloud cannot be as remote and ethereal as the metaphor implies. While it was assumed that cloud is purchased in a more impersonal and distant way and with minimal interaction between providers and purchasers, we show this not to be the case.  

Analyzing the experiences of over 50+ CIOs (or equivalent) across Europe, we explore the influence of the locational (where), relational (with whom) and temporal (when) dimensions of cloud adoption. Through our case evidence we show three types of proximity in cloud adoption: Organi-technical, Mercantile, Counsel proximity (see Table below).  

The influence of locational, relational and temporal dimensions on cloud adoption 

	Locational	Relational	Temporal
Organi-technical	Locationality of the servers and the data and their connection to the organisation.	Relationship of the organisation with existing technology.	Retrospective and future projections of the nature of, and use of, cloud technology by the organisation.
Mercantile	Locationality of the sales team and customers.	Support in identifying and selecting the desired cloud service.	Retrospective and future projections of the collaboration with the vendor’s sales function.
Counsel	Locationality of expertise to assist with the decision making, and the availability of expertise once the cloud service is in use.	Access to trusted expertise and their ability to advise on the selection and future use of the cloud-services.	Retrospective and future projections of the technology’s capacity and vendor’s capacity to assist once the cloud service is in use.

We show that during cloud adoption, organizations do not treat cloud as impersonal and location-independent by default. Consequentially, trust, mutual flexibility, value co-creation and risk-sharing between the organization and the vendor remain important areas for future research as the cloud ecosystem evolves and as further distributed technologies (e.g., IoT, blockchain etc.) are connected to an organization’s technological resources.  

For vendors, localized sales and support functions are beneficial within their marketing and sales efforts. The location of data is significant. Closer vendor-IT department relationships and sales support alongside a broader ecosystem of consultancies and sales agents help adoption. Vendors’ presence at local events enhances their potential to establish a relationship with a future customer. Local vendors can benefit from promoting their presence and locational relevance to future customers (e.g., alignment with local legislation), whereas international vendors may consider opening local branches or forming alliances with companies (e.g., consultancies) in locations with a large potential client base. Further, our findings on temporal proximity highlight the need for vendors to assist adopters in evaluating their product in relation to their existing technology and their projected future intentions (and the cloud technology’s future innovation).  

The research is available FREE and open access here:  https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/02683962231186161

Full abstract from the journal: 

We show that proximity is significant during cloud computing’s adoption. This is counter to the prevailing assumptions of cloud adoption as being more impersonal and distant, with less interaction between provider and purchaser than on-premise technologies. We do this through an interpretive study of cloud computing adopters across Europe. We develop a conceptual framework of cloud proximity which draws attention to its locational, relational and temporal proximal dimensions. Our proximal analysis leads us to identify three aspects of cloud adoption where proximity plays a key role: mercantile aspect (e.g., cloud sales support), counsel aspect (e.g., access to internal and external expertise) and organi-technical aspect (e.g., the understanding of cloud technology and services alongside their organizational adoption context). By challenging assumptions of distant and remote adoption, we contribute to the cloud computing adoption research and raise questions for IT adoption in general.