| Component | Definition | TOE aspect |
| Complexity | The degree to which HEIs find difficulty to understand or use the cloud. | Technology |
| Security | The degree of which HEIs can easily lose control over data, while simultaneously maintaining the availability, integrity, privacy and confidentiality of information. It generates new vulnerabilities and threats, contributing to further risks and challenges facing traditional IT environments, such as potential attackers who can access private data and applications on the cloud. | Technology |
| IT maturity | Given the unproven nature of the cloud as it is a relatively new technology, particularly in HEIs, can lead to future uncertainty of the technology, particularly in terms of potential threats and vulnerabilities, leading to institutions rejecting the technology | Environment |
| Cultural resistance | The degree of which HEIs and its students face organisational inertia, since migrating from the traditional system to a new cloud system may unexpectedly change their roles and responsibilities, as well as the ways of going about their daily activities. | Organisation |
| Migration issues | Migrating to the cloud can put HEIs’ data at risk. Vendor lock-in can restrict access to the systems or data hosted by the cloud provider, or in the worst case, a potential loss of data. | Technology |
| Compliance | The degree of which institutions are liable for ensuring data security and integrity, even when being held by cloud providers, and thus need to comply with security standards irrespective of where the applications or data are located | Environment |
| CC adoption | The degree of which HEIs plan to adopt CC. | - |
| HEIs | Higher education intuitions and their role in CC adoption. | - |
| HEI size | Number of students in the HEI | - |
| Students | Key users of the cloud in HEIs. | - |