A Quantitative Study of the Relationship Between Leadership Practice and Strategic Intentions to Use Cloud Computing

OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study is to explore the use of a theoretical model that Links leadership practice, attitudes of business process outsourcing, and strategic intention to use cloud computing.

METHODOLOGY
The study population was Information Technology directors and managers of medium-sized enterprise firms in the United States (N=6,060), solicited via a combination of online and verbal invitations, of which 125 responded. The typical respondent was male (91.1%), in a leadership position (71.4%), between the ages of 36-45 (38.4%), and Caucasian (75.9%). Respondents completed the Leadership Practices Inventory, an Attitude towards Outsourcing Scale (5 items), and Strategic Intentions scale (4 items). Internal reliability (Cronbach’s alpha) for the total LPI was .969.

KEY FINDINGS
The author concludes: “The findings of the study conclude a moderate relationship between leadership practice and strategic intentions of leadership to use cloud computing and a significant relationship between attitudes toward business process outsourcing and strategic intention of leadership to use cloud computing” (p. 82). “Statistical analysis of the data from the relationship between leadership practice and intention to use cloud computing revealed a moderate and significant relationship, correlation coefficient of (.294). A positive and moderate correlation coefficient indicates that as the view of leadership practice quality increases, so does the intention to use cloud computing” (p. 93). “Results indicated that among the population of information technology managers and directors of medium-sized enterprise firms in all industries across the United States, the variation in quality of leadership practice has little effect on attitudes to outsource business processes” (p. 93). “The latent construct attitudes toward business process outsourcing had no mediating or intervening effect on the relationship between leadership practice and strategic intentions of leadership to use cloud computing” (p. 94). The author concludes:

The most important finding of the study is that leaders who have a more favorable view of business process outsourcing are more likely to migrate their enterprise to a cloud computing platform. This is logical, as leaders who have declined to take full advantage of the efficiency gains from outsourcing their business processes to external providers might be expected to be unlikely to outsource their computing needs to cloud computing (p. 103).