Exploring continuance intention of social networking sites. An empirical study integrating social support and network externalities
| Date | 21 November 2016 |
| Published date | 21 November 2016 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/AJIM-05-2016-0064 |
| Pages | 736-755 |
| Author | Zheshi Bao |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management |
Exploring continuance intention
of social networking sites
An empirical study integrating social support
and network externalities
Zheshi Bao
Business School, Hohai University, Nanjing, China
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to explore the determinants of continuance intention of social
networking site (SNS) users through a new perspective and discuss how to retain SNS users.
Design/methodology/approach –The author proposed a research model by integrating network
externalities and social support. Three dimensions of social support and two types of network
externalities were analyzed, respectively, to explore the direct and indirect effects on continuance
intention. Online questionnaires were adopted to collect data, and 513 valid samples were analyzed by
structural equation modeling approach.
Findings –The findings show that network externalities have a significant indirect effect on user’
continuance intention through the mediation effects of social support, and among the three dimensions
of social support, network management plays a more important role on continuance intention.
Research limitations/implications –The findingssuggest that network externalitiescan trigger the
function of social support to keep the “stickiness”of SNS users, and network management is the key
dimension of online social support. Some other theoretical and practical implications are also provided.
Originality/value –The study is novel in exploring users’continuance intention of SNSs by
integrating socialsupport and network externalities.Meanwhile, the author also intends to comparethe
effect of different dimensions of social support on SNS usage and discuss their internal relationships.
Keywords Continuance intention, Network externalities, Social support, Social networking sites,
SNS providers, SNS users
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Social networking sites (SNSs), such as Facebook and Twitter, have become
ubiquitous and well-established online social platforms in people’s daily life (Lin and
Lu, 2011; Maier et al., 2014). Nearly every moment, a large number of people use SNSs
to contact with others, express themselves, read current news, display beautiful
pictures or just share their daily lives. Meanwhile, the popularity of portable devices
(smartphones and tablet PCs) and the application of the fourth-generation mobile
technologies have further accelerated this trend (Zhou, 2015). For users, SNSs have
become both computer-mediated and smartphone-mediated communication systems
and allowed them to log in without limitations of time and place. Essentially, SNSs
are platforms based on interaction and participation (Wei et al., 2014). Thus, SNS
users can be considered as the key to the success of them. In other words, long-term
development of SNSs largely depends on users’continuance intention. However, Park
and Lee (2010) argued that although SNSs have attracted a variety of users, how to
keep them is not easy because many functions and features of different SNSs now
Aslib Journal of Information
Management
Vol. 68 No. 6, 2016
pp. 736-755
©Emerald Group Publishing Limited
2050-3806
DOI 10.1108/AJIM-05-2016-0064
Received 23 May 2016
Revised 23 July 2016
Accepted 26 September 2016
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/2050-3806.htm
This work was supported by the Innovation of Graduate Student Training Project in Jiangsu
Province (No. KYLX16_0692).
736
AJIM
68,6
have become highly similar, and therefore fierce competitions among SNS providers
will inevitably exist. Under this background, approaches of retaining use rs and
facilitating their long-term usage are necessary to be explored. Many studies have
examined this from different perspectives.
Some researchers explored this from the perspective of perceived usefulness of SNS
users (Hsu et al., 2013; Mouakket, 2015; Wang et al., 2014; Yin et al., 2014). Several
theories and models, such as technology acceptance model, expectation-confirmation
model, motivation theory and some other theories and models were adopted to discuss
the variables related to usage of SNSs. Through them, these researchers explored
satisfaction, motivations, confirmation and their relationship to usefulness or ease of
use and then examined their effects on SNS usage. These studies have proposed a
variety of models and empirical evidences, thereby promoting further exploration of
this field and providing some theoretical and practical implications. But on the other
hand, the social nature of human beings which has little relationship to services of
SNSs but is still very essential to the users’continuance intention (Podoynitsyna et al.,
2013) has not been considered seriously.
To fill this gap, some researchers focused on social psychology to examine users’
continuance intention. Related theories such as attachment theory, self-regulation
framework as well as uses and gratifications theory (Chaouali, 2016; Chung et al., 2016;
Lin et al., 2014) were employed to propose hypotheses and many empirical
investigations were conducted to prove how continuance intention is influenced.
However, most of these researches belong to static studies. They can reveal users’
psychological motivations, but the interactions and participations which are considered
as foundations of SNS usage cannot be well reflected. Therefore, this perspective
cannot comprehensively reveal SNS users’behaviors.
Other studies discuss this topic from the perspective of social interaction. For
example, X. Lin et al. (2016) argue that users’continuance intention can be affected by
social support among SNS users. They developed an analytical framework to divide
social support into three dimensions and examined their effects on users’commitment
and SNS continuance. Besides, some researchers also tried to discuss users’
continuance intention from network benefits of SNSs (Bhattacherjee and Lin, 2008;
Chiu et al., 2013; Lin and Lu, 2011; Zhou, 2015). They believe users’attitude toward
SNSs usage can be influenced by the number of participants and complementary
products, because for SNS users, more benefits will be produced with convenient and
frequent interactions. These studies have paid attention to interaction and participation
of SNSs which are the primary features of SNSs and therefore worth conducting
continuous research. However, social support and network externalities may not work
in isolation, and some inner relationships between them have never been examined.
In addition, although prior studies have delineated dimensions of social support on
SNSs, the effect of each dimension on users’continuance intention and the internal
relationships among these dimensions also have not been analyzed.
Broadly, our aim is to explore users’continuance intention of SNSs by integrating social
support and network externalities. Meanwhile, we also intend to compare the effect of
different dimensions of social support on SNS usage and discuss their internal relationships.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we discuss the theoretical
backgrounds from which we put forward research hypothesis and present the conceptual
model. Then we describe the research methodologyinSection3,followedbyatestmode,
data analysis and results in Section 4. In Section 5 we discuss the implications, limitations
and future suggestions from the research. Finally, we conclude the research in Section 6.
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Exploring
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SNSs
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