A Multilevel Approach to Examining Continuance Usage of Information Systems

The user’s usage continuance of an information system (IS) has been considered as a key factor in determining whether an IS is useful or not. This usage continuance not only allows firms to recoup their IS investment but also represents the sustainability of IS success. However, continuance of IS usage is a long-term organizational process; it can be influenced by contingency factors (e.g., environmental and situational conditions) and has different effects on IS users. This paper attempts to apply the contingency theory approach to explore the complex relationship between IS effectiveness and user’s usage intention. Contingency factors usually are organization-dependent, thus we must examine their differences between organizations. For this purpose, we proposed a multilevel research model using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) method. A sample of 485 IS users and 166 IS department employees from 47 firms was surveyed to verify our model. The findings have several implications for IS management.