Abstract

Background: Existing IS frameworks—including TAM, UTAUT, and the TOE framework—explain cloud technology adoption primarily as an outcome of technology attributes and contextual factors, offering limited insight into how organizations with different strategic orientations actively translate cloud adoption into sustained IT innovation. This study asks: (RQ1) What factors do organizations prioritize in cloud adoption decisions? and (RQ2) How do organizations with different strategic orientations approach the sensing, reinforcement, and enactment phases of cloud adoption to promote IT innovation?

Method: Grounded in enactment theory and integrated with the TOE framework, this study employs a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design (QUAN → qual). The quantitative phase applied a Modified Delphi method and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) with 15 expert assessors to prioritize 12 cloud adoption criteria. The qualitative phase conducted 16 semi-structured expert interviews to reveal the strategic rationale and enactment processes underlying the AHP findings.

Results: AHP results identified Security (16.81%), Top Management Support (13.80%), and Regulatory Compliance (8.34%) as the three highest-priority criteria, reflecting a foundational emphasis on risk mitigation and internal readiness over environmental concerns (22.12%). Qualitative analysis revealed three distinct enactment orientations: Group 1 (technology-oriented) leverages IT capabilities to sustain competitive advantage; Group 2 (organization-oriented) relies on executive authorization and cost-benefit evaluation; and Group 3 (environment-oriented) treats competitive pressure and regulatory requirements as primary triggers for cloud-enabled innovation.

Conclusion: This study extends enactment theory beyond crisis-sensemaking to IT-enabled organizational innovation, demonstrating that firms construct cloud innovation environments through recursive sensing, reinforcement, and enactment cycles. It repositions environmental factors in the TOE framework from static antecedents to active innovation triggers, and reveals a resource competition mechanism explaining strategic trade-offs during adoption. These findings provide a practical enactment-based framework for Asia-Pacific organizations to align cloud strategies with their dominant strategic orientation.

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