Modelling the Dynamics of Trust across a Cloud Brokerage Environment

Abstract

The globalised nature of cloud computing presents us with new challenges towards the development of effective business relationships across a dynamic service ecosystem. While availing of additional service capabilities, organisations are tasked with managing unfamiliar relationships with unfamiliar cloud service providers to generate increased business value. This calls for more attention towards the concept of trust within a cloud service environment. Cloud computing presents new economic and flexible business and technological models which supports the co-creation nature of service quality and ultimately business value. This research examined various methods to assess service quality and service capability assessment. During the course of this work, the author has identified the need to revisit the concept of ‘trust' within a cloud computing context and prescribe a method to model its complexity. The objective of this paper is to argue that, while cloud computing allows organisations to avail of increased service capabilities; it challenges the concept of trust. To support this argument the author presents the Cloud Services Trust Model to explain the dynamics of trust. In doing so, it introduces a notion of a distributed relational structure in service value co-creation. The paper also draws on theoretical developments to highlight the fundamental changes in the nature of service provision and how they impact on the assessment of service value and service quality. The author supports the need for greater transparency in the move towards greater accountability in the cloud ecosystem. The paper applies social network analysis (SNA) to model the trust relationships of a cloud brokerage environment.