PERCEPTION OR CAPABILITIES? AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION OF THE FACTORS INFLUENCING THE ADOPTION OF SOCIAL MEDIA AND PUBLIC CLOUD IN GERMAN SMEs

Sohaib S. Hassan, Christian Reuter and Levan Bzhalava
Additional contact information
Sohaib S. Hassan: KONTIKAT, Faculty III, University of Siegen, Germany, Kohlbettstr. 15, 57072 Siegen, Germany2SME Graduate School, Faculty III, University of Siegen, Unteres Schloss 3, 57072 Siegen, Germany
Christian Reuter: Science and Technology for Peace and Security (PEASEC), Technical University of Darmstadt, Pankratiusstraße 2, 64289 Darmstadt, Germany
Levan Bzhalava: Finland Futures Research Centre, Turku School of Economics, University of Turku, Rehtorinpellonkatu 3, Turku, 20500, Finland5Caucasus School of Business, Caucasus University, Paata Saakadze 1, Tbilisi, 0102, Georgia

International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), 2021, vol. 25, issue 01, 1-26

Abstract: Social media and public cloud computing (SM&PC) have emerged as important resources of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), but not all SMEs use SM&PC. The existing research predominantly focuses on the role of either the features of social media and cloud computing in relation to the perceptions of decision makers or the internal capabilities of organization concerning new innovation adoption. By integrating multidisciplinary literature, we, instead, argues that both the perception- and capability-related factors could play an important role in the adoption of new ICT technology, such as SM&PC. Therefore, we empirically investigated the decision maker’s perception-related and SME’s capability-related factors that may influence the adoption of SM&PC in SMEs in Germany. We used quantitative research methods to examine the proposed hypotheses on a sample of 2,404 SMEs from 17 industrial sectors. The results demonstrate that the decisions of German SMEs to engage in social media and cloud computing are not only influenced by the perceptions of SME owners about the usefulness, security aspects, and the implementation costs of SM&PC, but also by the internal capabilities of an SME, namely the innovativeness of an SME. The results and potential contributions of our research are discussed.

Keywords: Social media; cloud computing; SMEs; digital transformation; technology adoption (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S136391962150002X
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wsi:ijimxx:v:25:y:2021:i:01:n:s136391962150002x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from

DOI: 10.1142/S136391962150002X

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim) is currently edited by Joe Tidd

More articles in International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim) from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tai Tone Lim ().