Determinants of Postadoption Behaviors of Mobile Communications Applications: A Dual-Model Perspective

Abstract

Given the rapid development of mobile technologies and the high adoption rates of mobile devices, mobile communications applications (MCAs) are becoming increasingly popular worldwide. In the highly competitive and rapidly changing MCA market, it is becoming important to understand users’ postadoption behaviors toward MCAs. Previous postadoption studies have focused on continuous use, but the success of MCAs is also affected by positive word of mouth. To deepen our understanding of postadoption behaviors in the MCA environment, this study examined the key determinants of continuance intention and recommendation intention, two critical postadoption behaviors. Moreover, this study investigated the effects of dedication and constraint factors on MCA postadoption phenomena from a dual-model perspective. Data collected from 250 users experienced with an MCA were empirically tested against a theoretical framework using partial least squares. The results confirm that the proposed model substantially predicted the postadoption behaviors of MCA users. These findings indicate that both user satisfaction and perceived switching costs play an important role in enhancing users’ continuance and recommendation intentions. Learning and habit were found to be the key antecedents of perceived switching costs. Implications for research and practice are described.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Byoungsoo Kim

Byoungsoo Kim is an assistant professor at the Department of Business Administration in Seoul Women’s University. He received his doctorate from KAIST Business School. His research interests include business ecosystem, mobile business, social network services, knowledge management, and community driven knowledge services.

Minhyung Kang

Minhyung Kang is an assistant professor of Advanced Industry Fusion Department at Konkuk University, Korea. His research interests include knowledge management and social network analysis. His studies have been published in Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Journal of Information Science, and Journal of Knowledge Management, among others.

Hyeon Jo

Hyeon Jo received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in 2004, 2006, and 2012, respectively. Since 2013 he has been a professor at Dong-A University, Korea. His research interests are collaborative filtering, social network, web data analysis, and Internet information.