Exploring the Role of Switching Costs in Explaining micro-Group adherence from the Socio-Technical Perspective

Micro-group is a commonly used function provided by most of China micro-blog platforms though which friends or people with common interests can share conversations like an online community. In this study, we draw from established socio-technical theory in Information Systems to develop an integrated model of customers’ adherence to micro-groups from the view of switching cost. The results of the empirical analysis confirmed that switching cost increases when the user perceived that the system was secure, full-functional or when there is a high level of network size, information value and network status. In the same way, greater switching cost was also found to have a positive influence on user adherence to micro-groups. Based on the findings, strategies to help micro-group site develop an enhanced “lock-in” effect are proposed.