The Impact of Operator Information Requesting Behaviors on Customer Continuance Intention.doc

1、1The Impact of Operator Information Requesting Behaviors on Customer Continuance IntentionAbstract. This paper explores the influence mechanism of organization information requesting behaviors on customers continuance usage intention by focusing on the conceptual model of post-adoptive behaviors. Hy

2、potheses are proposed: organization information requesting behaviors as one kind of organization intervention, will influence customers continuance usage intention, while trust plays a mediating effect between them; meanwhile, customer privacy concerns will negatively moderate the relationship betwe

3、en trust and continuance intention, and switching costs positively moderate the relationship between them. Key words: Organization intervention, Continuance usage intention, Privacy concern, Switching cost. 1. Introduction Internet has been the main form of our social lives in 21st century, and will

4、 also become the basis of digital society. Meanwhile, traditional marketing is transforming into internet marketing, providing users with an open, shared platform, as 2well as broader, faster and cheaper service. In China, internet banking(14.8%), online payment(12.3%), blog/personal page(10.9%), mi

5、cro-blog(9.5%) and online shopping(8.2%) had become the fastest growth in usage of Internet application services in 2012 (CNNIC report). E-commerce and social network type applications contain much private information, so personal data are widely collected, used, transmitted, exposed, and sold via I

6、nternet. The insecurity of personal privacy has become a matter of public concern while we are enjoying the convenient and personalized online service. Service providers can benefit a lot from customer information. Firstly, the information is good evidence for their product design and optimization;

7、secondly, vendors find potential demands through these data. Whats more, the large quantity of information can be shared with partners or sold to get economic benefits directly. As a result, consumers are harassed by account take-over, spam SMS/E-mails and phone fraud, which have seriously violated

8、our personal lives and economic interests. Customer information is important to service providers, but they may see poor business results if the personal privacy concern belief of consumers greater than their technology 3adoption intentions. So the problem is how could service providers get the info

9、rmation they need by skillfully avoid users privacy concern and keep their continuance usage. We try to explore the influence mechanism of application providers information requirement on customers continuance intention by answer: 1) how will providers information requiring behaviors affect users? 2

10、) what are the main factors users concern to provide their personal information? 2. Literature review 2.1 Post-adoptive model and customer usage intention The most direct marketing target of vendors is consumers adoption and applications dissemination, which includes three stages: previous practice,

11、 adopt decision and behaviors after adoption 1. After adoption, consumers adoption behavior will not only be increased or reduced according to their experience of usage, which is defined as post-adoptive behavior. Jasperson et al. proposed a dynamic post-adoptive behavior model by discussing its inf

12、luencing factors 2, which is divided into two levels: organizational action model and individual cognition model. From the model we can learn: 1) individual cognitions directly affect their post-adoptive intentions; 2) individual differences moderate the relationship 4between them; 3) organization i

13、nterventions change individuals post-adoptive intentions by affecting their cognitions To highlight that post-adoptive behaviors are “dynamic change” of frequency and times and is “not a one-off” use, we adopt “continuance intention” to measure consumers psychological tendency to know whether to con

14、tinue to use the product. 2.2 Privacy concern The personal information requirement behaviors of venders directly relate to the risks of users privacy information disclosure. Therefore privacy concern plays a very significant role in such a circumstance. It contains there levels: controlling, collect

15、ing and awareness 3.Privacy concern has a certain impact on the provision of personal information and final using decision, but there are different views about the inner mechanism of action. The relationship between privacy concern and trust is controversial. Many scholars have confirmed that privac

16、y concern will affect trust4-6, but others believe that trust will reduce consumers privacy concern 7,8. So there is more likely an interaction effect between privacy concern and trust, which will in turn affect 5users intention. 2.3 Switching cost Switching cost is produced when users get transferr

17、ed from one operator to another 9. Online Switching cost plays an important role on consumer remain because of the incompatibility among different vender applications. Switching costs have a close relationship with customer loyalty behaviors. One of the two principal views thinks that switching cost

18、 directly affects customer loyalty behaviors 10-12. Other scholars believed that switching cost plays a moderating effect in the formation mechanism of customer loyalty 13,14. Burnham et al. 9 proved that switching cost moderate the relationship between customer trust and loyalty, but conclusions ar

19、e inconsistent. Lee et al. have found a positive moderation 15 while Dagger et al. suggest that the moderating effect is negative 16. It can be learned from the above literature reviews that the mechanisms of action that switching cost plays on the customer loyalty behavior still remain uncertainty.

20、 3. Research hypotheses 3.1 Information requiring behaviors, trust and continuance intention Berger believed that information can be operated in four 6levels: quantity, quality, relevance, and manner 17. It will bring the organizations positively practical experiences if the operators information op

21、eration can solve the problems of users perceived risks of privacy disclosure 18, so trust becomes the most influential factor. Trust is defined as a collection of vary kinds of specific beliefs on other side which helps to impose positive influence on customers online transaction 19, including Bene

22、volence belief, Competence belief, Integrity belief and Predictability belief 20. According to Jaspersons model, information requesting, as a kind of organizational intervention, will directly impact the users trust and finally exert influence on the continuance intention. Therefore, we propose hypo

23、theses: H1 Information requesting behaviors of operators play influence on consumer trust： H1a) the quantities of information required are negatively related to consumer trust; H1b) the frequencies of information required are negatively related to consumer trust; H1c) the relevance of information re

24、quired positively affects consumer trust. McKnight et al. proposed in their conceptual model of trust 7that customers trusting beliefs determine their trusting intentions like willingness to depend or subjective probability of depending 20. The positive relationship between trust beliefs and consume

25、r behaviors is confirmed by lots of studies 21, 22. Trust presents the belief of getting benefits with low risks; then will easily lead to the continuance intention. H2 Trust plays a mediating effect between operators information requesting behaviors and users continuance intention 3.2 The moderatin

26、g effects of privacy concern and switching cost Reasonable information requests create trust and continuance usage, accompanied with a “flow” experience. Flow represents the feeling of complete and energized focus in an activity, with a high level of enjoyment and fulfillment 23. When people are in

27、“flow”, they become absorbed in their activities with mitigate price sensitivity, and positively influence subsequent attitudes and behaviors 24. Users switching costs and possibility of maintaining a long-term relationship with the current operator are increased 25. While unreasonable information r

28、equirement behaviors will break users trust and entrap them into the embarrassment of whether 8to continue to disclose personal information. Theyll increase the attention on operators information operation honesty 26. Individual control is the key factor to maintain the state of “flow” 27. The loss

29、of control will result in the break of “flow”, and the users will return back to normal consciousness, cognitions and senses. Finally itll influence the continuance intention to the present products. In the situation of privacy disclosure, consumers will launch self-assessments of costs and benefits

30、 28. If personal information disclosure can bring benefits and the following risks are acceptable, consumers will tend to disclose privacy 29. The specific performance of self-management of users can be shown in two aspects: 1) when users perceived risks of privacy disclosure, they may offer fake in

31、formation or reduce the online participation (usage frequency, number of transactions, etc.) or give up using. 2) the increase of switching cost may force users to continue to use the products. Driven by privacy concerns, users begin to inspect their trust-based usage behaviors. Users with high priv

32、acy concern are more sensitive to the provision of personal information, so they can accept limited privacy disclosure. Improper information requirement (like too much information required, 9mandatory exchange between information and product use permission) will violate their trust beliefs. They may

33、 feel hurt because of the loss of the fairness and control of their information 30, and have much more violent reactions: decreasing or giving up the willingness of using the product. Although being asked for more private information, users with low privacy concern may not pay much attention to thei

34、r personal information and do not think it really matters, so their reactions wont be that fierce. Therefore, this paper proposes hypotheses: H3 Privacy concern negatively moderates the relationship between consumer trust and continuance intention. Considering about costs, those with low switching c

35、ost will not afford too much for changing to a new product, so their trust cannot easily form continuous intention. When they find a fresh product, they will easily accept it and the continuous intention of the old one will decrease, even though their trust towards the new one is much lower than the

36、 old one. While to the consumers with high switching cost, enjoyment/ benefit from using new product is far lower than the loss of abandoning the old one, so their trust can easily lead to the stable continuance intention. So we hypothesize that: 10H4 Switching cost will positively moderate the rela

37、tionship between consumer trust and continuance intention. 4. Summary The purpose of the study is to explore the influence mechanism of organization information requesting behaviors on customers continuance intention. We propose four important hypotheses: organization information requesting behavior

38、s will influence customers continuance usage intention, while trust plays a mediating effect between them; customer privacy concerns will negatively moderate the relationship between trust and continuance intention, and switching costs positively moderate the relationship between them. Privacy conce

39、rn is a very important factor for consumers left when facing venders information request, while switching cost is the main reason for their remain, so its significant to compare the effect between privacy concern and switching cost to see which one plays a more important role. Organizations may in turn optimize their information requesting strategies. Theoretically, firstly this article expands the research of switching cost into the internet market; then it sets up a complete influence mechanism that operators information requesting behaviors exert on consumers continuance intention.