Correlations of Perceived Flow, Perceived System Quality, Perceived Information Quality, and Perceived User Trust on Mobile Social Networking Service (SNS) Users' Loyalty

This research aims to examine the correlations of perceived flow, perceived system quality, perceived information quality and perceived user trust on mobile social networking service (SNS) users’ loyalty. Investigation of correlation between perceived user trust with perceived flow and user loyalty were also performed. Two hundred students were the subjects of a Malaysian university to answer survey questions on their currently chosen mobile social network system. The correlations between perceptual variables on mobile SNS were then analyzed and various causal relations deduced. Research findings indicate both perceived information quality and perceived system quality correlates with perceived flow and perceived users’ trust, which further correlate mobile SNS users’ loyalty. Perceived user trust correlates with perceived flow, and both factors correlates with user loyalty. Perceived flow is regarded as the strongest factor that correlates with users’ loyalty. The paper rounds off with conclusions and an agenda for future research in this area. DOI: 10.4018/jitr.2012040101 2 Journal of Information Technology Research, 5(2), 1-14, April-June 2012 Copyright © 2012, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. Internet and mobile phones in the past decade. Zhong, Hardin, and Sun (2011) stated that the advent of social network sites is rapidly changing human interaction, that millions of people worldwide are living much of their lives on social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn. Mobiledevice-based social networking services (SNS) have become popular technology mediated communication modalities. Counts and Fisher (2010) stated that the advantages and promises of these services stem from the integration of the social connections brought about by social networking services and the communication channel and portability of the mobile device. According to Social Computing Magazine (2011), in March 2011, a Japan mobile service provider known as Softbank Mobile issued a press release announcing that the carrier’s official Yahoo! mobile portal has added a mobile social networking category to the top level menu. The four sites included are MySpace Mobile, Mixi Mobile, GREE, and Avex. Excite Japan, an Internet information portal site and one of the “dotcom” portals similar to Yahoo!, Lycos and Netscape, announced the UK release of its ad-funded mobile social networking sites, Mobikade. The huge success of ad-funded mobile SNS in Japan itself shows the significant growth of mobile SNS. The number of Facebook users continues increasing globally and is quickly becoming one of the most popular tools for social communication and entertainment. Facebook has more than 500 million worldwide active users (Facebook, 2010). Users spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook. More than 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) are shared each month. There are over 900 million objects that people interact with (pages, groups, events and community pages). Facebook introduced features such as wall, pokes, status, photos, news feed, tag, market place, instant messaging and video. This study is helpful to mobile SNS providers as it discusses the effect of flow experience on users’ loyalty towards their platform. If the mobile SNS provider wishes to retain and increase their customers, special attention will need to be paid towards the information and system quality provided. Apart from that, the variety of SNS management team such as Facebook and Twitter will benefit from this study as well because they are capable of altering and providing the perceived enjoyment to their users. Hence, this research aims to examine the correlations of perceived flow, perceived system quality, perceived information quality and perceived user trust on mobile social networking service (SNS) users’ loyalty. Investigation of correlation between perceived user trust with perceived flow and user loyalty is also being examined. This paper is structured as follows: First we present the model employed in this study, focusing on the rationale of the constructs used and deriving testable hypotheses. Then we go onto describe the research methodology. The next section presents the results and discussions sections. The paper rounds off with conclusions and an agenda for future research in this area. PERCEIVED INFORMATION QUALITY AND PERCEIVED USER TRUST Perceived information quality is a pervasive social concept and a key antecedent of information systems success (DeLone & McLean, 1992). Information content includes the amount of information, variety of information, and content quality. Findings indicate that users care about information quality, content richness and navigation (Ilsever, Cyr, & Parent, 2007). Fung and Lee (1999) and Keen, Balance, Chan, and Schrump (2000) proposed that information quality should be an important trust building mechanism. In a similar way, people trust a speaker who gives truthful or credible information (Giffin, 1967). Continuous exchanges of information, access to and understanding of information are necessary conditions for establishing a learning process. Similarly, reliability, relevance and personalisation of exchanges encourage the creation of a trust-based relation12 more pages are available in the full version of this document, which may be purchased using the "Add to Cart" button on the product's webpage: www.igi-global.com/article/correlations-perceived-flowperceived-system/72707?camid=4v1 This title is available in InfoSci-Journals, InfoSci-Journal Disciplines Computer Science, Security, and Information Technology, InfoSci-Technology Adoption, Ethics, and Human Computer Interaction eJournal Collection, InfoSciNetworking, Mobile Applications, and Web Technologies eJournal Collection, InfoSci-Journal Disciplines Engineering, Natural, and Physical Science. Recommend this product to