Emotional Satisfaction and IS Continuance Behavior: Reshaping the Expectation-Confirmation Model

ABSTRACT

This research develops and tests an extended Expectation-Confirmation Model (ECM) framework to investigate IT continuance behavior for the workplace and personal use. After collecting empirical data from emerging technology users, the authors created a new model that considers the oft-slighted bilateral nature of user satisfaction, which is divisible into cognitive and emotional satisfaction elements. The proposed model substitutes perceived benefit for perceived usefulness, which figures prominently in previous ECM models and yet fails to capture non-utilitarian advantages of IT. Also, the new model captures emotional aberrations and demonstrates repercussions in the continuance dependent variable.

Our findings indicate that perceived benefit exhibits a strong positive effect on both cognitive and emotional satisfaction, as well as on user continuance intention. Further, results suggest that cognitive and emotional satisfaction are vital drivers of continuance and are necessary for IT product success. Moreover, emotional satisfaction exerts a stronger influence on continuance than does cognitive satisfaction, which implies that managers should emphasize emotional advantages, together with work performance. The IT product team can derive practical information from measured emotional responses arising from either normal or non-normal user behaviors. Overall, this work fills a research void in the IS literature, contributes to understanding IT post-adoption behavior, and describes a new perspective in IT continuance research.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Md Rasel Al Mamun

Md Rasel Al Mamun is a doctoral candidate in the College of Business at the University of North Texas. His major is BCIS. He holds a BSc and MS in physics. His educational background and industry experience in banking grow his research interests in technology adoption, cybersecurity, and business analytics.

William D. Senn

William D. Senn is an Assistant Professor of Information Systems and Data Analytics in the School of Business at Emporia State University. He is an Editor of the international journal, Education for Information. He holds a PhD in Information Science from the University of North Texas.

Daniel A. Peak

Daniel A. Peak is a Professor of Information Technology at the University of North Texas. A concert pianist with BMus and MMus degrees, he received his Ph.D. with Information Systems and Finance majors from UNT. He has more than 25 years of executive IT consulting, planning, and project management experience.

Victor R. Prybutok

Victor R. Prybutok is a Regents Professor of Decision Sciences in the ITDS Department, Vice Provost for Graduate Education, and Dean of the Toulouse Graduate School at the University of North Texas. He received his Ph.D. from Drexel University in Environmental Analysis and Applied Statistics in 1984.

Russell A. Torres

Russell A. Torres is an Assistant Professor of Business Analytics in the Department of ITDS at the University of North Texas. His research interests include data-driven decision-making, organizational impacts of business intelligence and analytics, the use and governance of artificial intelligence, and a wide variety of information technology management topics.