Understanding the formation of software-as-a-service (SaaS) satisfaction from the perspective of service quality

In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f o SaaS has attracted interest among researchers and practitioners. Despite the importance of client satisfaction in SaaS success, the formation of it remains unclear. To address this, this study uses dedication–constraint mechanisms as a theoretical lens to explain how satisfaction is affected by trust, including competence-based trust and openness-based trust, and how trust is influenced by service quality. We also investigate the moderating effect of relational norms on the influence of trust on satisfaction. The proposed model is supported by data collected from 124 senior IT managers using survey instrument, showing that service quality, in terms of rapport and flexibility, positively affects trust, which in turn influences satisfaction. Besides, the moderating effect of relational norms on the relationships between trust and satisfaction is significant. We provide the theoretical and practical implications of our findings. The development of on-demand software delivery service models such as software-as-a-service (SaaS), aiming to provide firms with Internet-based access to resources or applications related to a firm's complete virtual value chain [3,28], has raised an important question: How to improve a client firm's satisfaction. The reason for attracting a client firm is to avoid high installation cost and uncertainty pervading tradition IT initiatives, but reduced capital investments of the client usually cause its low dedication to the relationship with its service provider (SP) [17,25]. Satisfaction plays a key role in avoiding a client's switch to a new vendor and increasing its positive word of mouth and long-term continuation of relationships with the SP [16]. However, studies on SaaS [4] show that clients' unsatisfying rate is high and the formation of satisfaction is inconclusive, slowing the advances of SaaS. This present study focuses on the determinants of satisfaction in SaaS, because they help SPs understand how to improve their service quality and clients choose the SP which is beneficial to them to avoid costs involved in switching SPs including termination costs and redeployment costs [11]. While the promising opportunities for the successful use of SaaS and its software revenues, are forecasted to grow by 19.4% overall between 2008 and …