Understanding Chinese users’ switching behaviour of cloud storage services
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/EL-04-2016-0080 |
| Date | 03 April 2017 |
| Published date | 03 April 2017 |
| Pages | 214-232 |
| Author | Fang Xu,Meng Tian,Guohu Xu,Brenda Reyes Ayala,Wen Shen |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
Understanding Chinese users’
switching behaviour of cloud
storage services
Fang Xu
School of Management, South-Central University for Nationalities,
Wuhan, China
Meng Tian and Guohu Xu
School of Business Administration,
Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Wuhan, China
Brenda Reyes Ayala
College of Information, University of North Texas, Denton, Texas, USA, and
Wen Shen
School of Business Administration,
Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Wuhan, China
Abstract
Purpose –This paper aims to explore the switching intention and behaviour of cloud storage services (CSS)
individual users in China by integrating the variables of switching cost and habit into the expectation
disconrmation theory.
Design/methodology/approach –Based on 419 valid responses, structural equation modelling was
used to examine the research model.
Findings –The results indicated that perceived usefulness and expectation disconrmation have a positive
and negative effect on user satisfaction, respectively. While expectation disconrmation has a negative impact
on perceived usefulness, user satisfaction positively affects users’ habit and switching cost. At the same time,
switching intention is affected signicantly and negatively by perceived usefulness, user satisfaction, as well
as switching cost, where in switching intention and habit can commendably predict switching behaviour. The
results can guide for CSS providers on how to successfully retain users in the competitive CSS market.
Originality/value –Previous researches have investigated the effects of perceived usefulness, switching
cost and user traits on CSS adoption and continuance intention, as well as behaviour; they neglected the
antecedents of switching cost and the effect of user habit on them. Additionally, relatively few studies have
been devoted to an empirical examination of the switching behaviour from a particular CSS product to its rival
products at the individual user level. This research tries to ll these gaps.
Keywords Switching cost, Switching behaviour, Cloud storage services,
Expectation disconrmation, User habits
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
With the explosive growth of digital information, traditional storage tools, such as hard
drives and USB drives, are becoming less effective to store and synchronize mass data across
This research is supported in part by the Chinese National Funds of Social Science (14BGL001) and the
Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China (31541010805).
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
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EL
35,2
214
Received 3 April 2016
Revised 28 May 2016
1 July 2016
Accepted 4 July 2016
TheElectronic Library
Vol.35 No. 2, 2017
pp.214-232
©Emerald Publishing Limited
0264-0473
DOI 10.1108/EL-04-2016-0080
terminals. The timely appearance of cloud storage services (CSS) caters to the demand for
low-cost, high-performance storage space, secure and stable data storage and cross-terminal
synchronization and sharing (EECS, 2009;SNIA, 2009). CSS is an emerging Web-based
storage service which uses cloud computing technologies. This technology enables users to
store, access, edit, backup, synchronize and share digital les in the cloud via various
internet-accessible terminals, such as smartphones, tablets, personal computers and laptops.
CSS manages backend storage resources by adopting storage virtualization technologies
and exibly allocating storage spaces as demanded. In the past, users of stored data were
always the owners of the physical storage devices. CSS has signicantly revolutionized the
storage of digital information in the age of Big Data.
Spurred by the compelling market prospect of CSS, numerous IT and e-business
enterprises have developed CSS in China. These businesses provide paid or free cloud-based
storage services for enterprises, individuals and other user groups. As a result, this has
caused erce competition in a homogenous CSS market. According to statistical data, there
were dozens of CSS products available to its 380 million Chinese individual users in 2014
(iiMedia Research, 2014). It is also noteworthy that 63.6 per cent of CSS users have used two
or more CSS products (iiMedia Research, 2014). This high percentage suggests a high
attrition rate of users and low user loyalty to a single CSS product. Accordingly, the success
of a personal CSS product should not only depend on its technological innovation and the
initial adoption but also needs to consider the rate of continuous usage after initial adoption
and the users’ loyalty to the brand (Liu et al., 2011).
Academic research studies and business practices during the past 30 years have veried
the positive effect of customer satisfaction on customer loyalty (Cronin et al., 2000). However,
in the business practice of enterprises, there may be several situations that can lead to a loss
of consumers (Reichheld and Sasser, 1990;Seo et al., 2008):
• although consumers are satised with the products they use, a low switching cost (SC)
may accelerate their switch to alternatives;
• the products in use do not thoroughly meet consumer expectations, resulting in low
satisfaction and a search for alternatives; and
• consumers have not formed use habits (HA) for the products they are using, causing
their motivation to wane due to low rates of usage frequency.
When describing the above phenomena, Philip et al. (2009) pointed out there are two ways to
retain customers: enhancing user satisfaction (SA) and reinforcing switching barriers. That
is to say, there are two crucial elements for the success of CSS providers. The rst is to
provide distinctive product functions and to optimize the user experience, thereby boosting
the SA. The second is to increase SCs and to cultivate user habit, which strengthens
switching barriers and thus reduces the intention of users to switch to competing products.
By considering the context of CSS in China, this paper introduces the variables of SC and HA
into expectation disconrmation theory (EDT) (Oliver, 1980) to investigate switching
intention (SI) and behaviour of individual CSS users. This paper aims to guide CSS providers
on how to successfully retain users in this highly competitive market.
Literature review
Research on post-adoption behaviours of information system users
The adoption behaviours of individual users of information systems (IS) have received
considerable attention from researchers. IS users’ adoption can be divided into pre-adoption
behaviours and post-adoption behaviours. Initially, scholars paid more attention to the
former. During their research, theories were proposed to investigate initial adoption. These
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