Trust or consequences? Causal effects of perceived risk and subjective norms on cloud technology adoption

Cloud computing has become a popular alternative information curation solution for organizations. As more corporate proprietary information is stored in the Cloud, concerns about Cloud information security have also increased. This study investigates the causal effect of perceived risk and subjective norms on users' trust intention to adopt Cloud technology. A partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) analysis was performed to assess latent variables and examine moderating effects to Cloud technology adoption. Our findings suggest that a user's perceived risk and subjective norms have a significant effect on their trust intention vis-a-vis Cloud adoption, which leads to their decision on whether to adopt the Cloud technology. While a user's attitudes do influence their intention to trust the Cloud, their attitude is not moderated by either perceived risk or subjective norms. On the other hand, a user's perceived risk of the Cloud environment predominately moderates their knowledge and perceived behavioral control, which results in their knowledge and perceived behavioral control not having a direct effect on their intention to trust the Cloud. Moreover, a user's subjective norms predicate their trust intention, which further moderates their knowledge and perceived behavioral control to trust and to adopt Cloud technology.