Why end-users move to the cloud: a migration-theoretic analysis

Abstract

This study presents and empirically validates a model of end-user migration from client-hosted computing to cloud computing. Synthesizing key findings from IT adoption and post-adoption research, switching research, and cloud computing studies, it builds an integrative framework of cloud migration using migration theory as a theoretical lens, and postulates interdependencies among these predictors. A longitudinal survey of Google Apps adoption among student subjects in South Korea validates our proposed model. This study contributes to our nascent body of knowledge on IT migration by drawing attention to this emerging phenomenon, demonstrating how migration research is different from IT adoption research, identifying salient factors that enable or hinder cloud migration, elaborating interdependencies between these different predictors, and bringing in migration theory as a referent theory to the information systems literature.