The impacts of unique service resources and habit on e-service loyalty in a highly competitive market
Journal of Systems and Information Technology
ISSN: 1328-7265
Article publication date: 9 November 2015
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to seek to quantify how unique service resources and consumer habit affect e-service loyalty (e-loyalty) in a highly competitive market. This study is grounded on Chinese social networking service (SNS) industry. A resource-based view is introduced as an alternative perspective to understand building consumer loyalty in e-service contexts.
Design/methodology/approach
A research framework is developed by reviewing prior literature. An online survey is conducted to collect research data. Based on 221 valid responses, the research model is tested by using partial least squares path modeling technique.
Findings
The features of market environments affects the loyalty of consumers to e-service providers. Consumers become mercenary in highly competitive and low differentiation e-service markets like Chinese SNS industry. The interaction of satisfaction and switching cost affects loyalty. Satisfied consumers can be either loyal or not loyal to a service provider depending on their level of switching cost, but unsatisfied consumers will have no loyalty. In addition, users are loyal to a SNS partly because it is their habit to use the service. Our study suggests that relying on consumer satisfaction to build e-loyalty may be problematic and risky.
Originality/value
The study represents an attempt to introduce the resource-based view to e-loyalty research. The research highlights the importance of habit in building consumers’ e-service satisfaction and loyalty and contributes to new insights on the importance of industry environment in determining e-service satisfaction–loyalty relationship based on studying consumers in a highly competitive market.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this paper was published at the Proceedings of the 13th IFIP Conference on e-Business, e-Services and e-Society in Sanya, China.
This research is partly supported by Wuhan University Academic Development Plan for Scholars after 1970s for the project Research on Internet User Behavior and the National Funds of Social Science (No. 14BTQ044), the National Planning Office of Philosophy and Social Science in China (No. 13CTQ029) and the Zhejiang Province Planning Project of Philosophy and Social Sciences (No. 11JCGL04YB).
Citation
Liu, Y., Deng, S., Hu, F. and Chen, X. (2015), "The impacts of unique service resources and habit on e-service loyalty in a highly competitive market", Journal of Systems and Information Technology, Vol. 17 No. 4, pp. 336-350. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSIT-06-2015-0050
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2015, Emerald Group Publishing Limited