Date of Conferral

9-26-2025

Degree

Doctor of Information Technology (D.I.T.)

School

Information Systems and Technology

Advisor

Dana Haywood

Abstract

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) information technology (IT) managers are concerned about the struggle to select suitable legacy systems for cloud adoption, which can lead to costly delays and poor legacy system alignment. Grounded in the technology acceptance model, this qualitative pragmatic inquiry explored strategies SME IT managers used to select legacy systems for cloud adoption. The participants were five SME IT managers from SMEs in the Southeast United States. Data were collected using semistructured interviews and by reviewing public documents. Through thematic analysis, four themes were identified: (a) cloud Strategy and planning, (b) cost, efficiency, and performance, (c) security, compliance, and risk, and (d) user-centered experience and uusability. A key recommendation is that SME IT managers should conduct structured business-IT alignment workshops that include stakeholders from both technical and business units to jointly assess which legacy systems are critical to operations, align with long-term goals, and are feasible for migration. The implications for positive social change include the potential for SME managers to reduce their organizations’ carbon footprint by replacing high-energy legacy systems with more energy-efficient cloud-based solutions.

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