Towards a Framework for Cloud Computing use by Governments: Leaders, Followers and Laggers

Abstract

There are large varieties of governmental organizations using clouds in different ways. The purpose of this article is to explore and classify the types of public organizations using cloud computing. This will help to improve our understanding of cloud adoption and use by governments. For this, a systematic review of literature on cloud government (CloudGov) was performed by searching for articles in several databases. The review resulted into the main elements of the framework for classifying cloud use. In addition, using diffusion of innovation and institutional theory a categorization of public organizations was made. When applying the CloudGov framework empirically in government organizations, we identified three types of organizations: Leaders, Followers and Laggers. The types differ in various ways including their technology expertise, attitude towards innovation and level of political support. In further research, we recommend investigating which drivers influence the type of CloudGov users and generalize the framework to other contexts.