Trialing or combining? Understanding consumer partial switching in mobile application usage from the variety seeking perspective
ISSN: 1066-2243
Article publication date: 23 March 2021
Issue publication date: 1 November 2021
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to clarify what specific behaviors are involved in consumers' partial switching in mobile application (app) usage, and, second, to explore the common and differential motivations of these behaviors.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper specified two behaviors in consumers' partial switching in mobile app usage, trialing and combining behaviors, and conceptualized them as different types of variety seeking behaviors. A theoretical model contrasting intrinsic motivations and extrinsic motivations on the two behaviors was developed and tested with a sample of 561 mobile app users in China.
Findings
The findings showed that both trialing and combining behaviors could be motivated by intrinsic individual-related and extrinsic technology-related factors. Besides, intrinsic individual-related factors were more effective in motivating trialing behavior, whereas extrinsic technology-related factors were more effective in motivating combining behavior. All these findings are applicable and consistent in both hedonic and utilitarian apps.
Originality/value
This study extends and advances the literature on information technology switching by investigating consumer use behaviors from a new perspective of partial switching and multiple competing apps usage. This study also contributes to variety seeking literature by extending the understanding of variety seeking to the context of mobile app usage. Finally, by investigating the associations and distinctions of trialing and combining behavior, this study not only helps to fully understand the partial switching but also enriches the understanding of different types of variety seeking behaviors.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This article is partly based upon the research-in-progress conference paper “Why Consumers Need Diversity? Understanding Consumers' Multiple Usage of Competing Mobile Applications from a Variety-seeking Perspective,” hosted on Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems 2017 proceedings. The authors also want to thank the editors and anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions, which helped them improve the paper a lot.Funding: This paper is supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71771097, 71810107003), a grant from the Humanities and Social Sciences Foundation of the Ministry of Education (17YJA630140), a grant from the National Social Science Fund of China (18ZDA109), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, HUST (2018JYCXJJ053).
Citation
Hu, Y., Zhao, L., Luo, X.(R)., Gupta, S. and He, X. (2021), "Trialing or combining? Understanding consumer partial switching in mobile application usage from the variety seeking perspective", Internet Research, Vol. 31 No. 5, pp. 1769-1802. https://doi.org/10.1108/INTR-09-2019-0368
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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