The Effect of Switching Costs on the Satisfaction-Continuance Relationship: An Extension of Expectation-Confirmation Model

The expectation-confirmation model (ECM) has been applied to investigate the satisfaction with and continuance of information technology (IT) after its adoption. However, the ECM assumes that the satisfaction-continuance relationship is linear. In the electronics market, however, such a linear relationship may be susceptible to the influence of new variants unique to the Internet. In addition, the ECM-based satisfaction-continuance relationship explains psychological motives for IS continuance nicely, but its framework is insufficient to capture the non-psychological dimensions of IS continuance intention. Subsequently, the inclusion of switching costs, which has been frequently proposed as a determinant of loyalty and a moderator of the satisfaction-loyalty relationship, as a construct of ECM may enrich our understanding of the continuance and the satisfaction-continuance relationship of online services. The addition of switching costs can also improve the theoretical completeness of the model, particularly in the online services context.