COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF CLOUD COMPUTING ADOPTION MODELS AND THEIR IMPACT ON OPERATIONAL EFFICACY OF SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES IN NORTH CENTRAL NIGERIA

Cloud computing is widely promoted as a lever for operational improvement in small and medium enterprises, yet comparative evidence on which adoption dimension matters most in North Central Nigeria remains thin. This study examined the effect of cloud computing adoption models, cloud computing infrastructure, cloud computing service models and cloud computing implementation on the operational efficacy of small and medium enterprises in Benue, Nasarawa, Kogi, Kwara and Niger State. A survey design was adopted and a dataset of 321 valid responses from a five-construct measurement model, was analysed. Cronbach alpha values were 0.814, 0.813, 0.806, 0.809 and 0.853 for the five constructs and 0.891 for the full instrument. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin value was 0.890, Bartlett test of sphericity was significant, and five components explained 65.46 percent of total variance. Composite reliability ranged from 0.836 to 0.855 and average variance extracted from 0.561 to 0.595. Variance inflation factors between 1.162 and 1.323 indicated no multicollinearity. A binary logit model, with operational efficacy coded one where the composite score reached 3.00, returned significant positive coefficients for adoption models (0.426, p = 0.026), infrastructure (0.934, p < 0.001), service models (0.537, p = 0.005) and implementation (1.013, p < 0.001), with corresponding odds ratios of 1.531, 2.544, 1.711 and 2.754. The model was jointly significant, with a likelihood ratio chi-square of 130.151, a Nagelkerke R-squared of 0.446, correct classification of 76.3 percent of cases and an area under the curve of 0.842. Implementation depth and infrastructure quality mattered most for operational outcomes.