Security and privacy concerns for Australian SMEs cloud adoption: Empirical study of metropolitan vs regional SMEs

New national infrastructure initiatives such as National Broadband Network (NBN) could enable Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in Australia to further embrace Cloud computing service. However, the ability of Cloud computing to store data remotely and share services in a dynamic environment bring along with it Cloud security and privacy concerns. In this study, we examined the influence of privacy and security factors on Cloud adoption by Australian SMEs through a questionnaire survey. Data was collected from 150 SMEs (i.e. 79 metropolitan SMEs and 71 regional SMEs) and structural equation modelling was used for data analysis. The findings show that Cloud privacy and security factors are not the most critical concern for Australian SMEs. Moreover, the results indicate that Cloud computing adoption is not influenced by the geographical location of the SMEs. This study extends the current understanding of Cloud computing adoption by Australian SMEs.