Perceived values, platform attachment and repurchase intention in on-demand service platforms: A cognition-affection-conation perspective

Abstract

The rapid growth of on-demand services and the increasing competition among platforms make the repurchase behaviors of experienced clients an urgent and important problem. Drawing on the cognition-affection-connation framework, this study proposes a research model to examine how clients' repurchase intentions are shaped in the context of on-demand services by focusing on the service client-platform relationship. The model was tested with a sample of 519 respondents collected from experienced clients of the largest on-demand service platform in China, Meituan, via the questionnaire survey method. Our findings suggest that the three value constructs (i.e., cognition) derived from the service consuming experience, including utilitarian value, hedonic value and interactivity value, significantly contribute to the establishment of platform attachment (i.e., affection), which in turn drives repurchase intention (i.e., conation) toward on-demand services. This research outlines an attachment-based framework to gain an insightful understanding of client loyalty behaviors in the on-demand service context. It also makes contributions to the existing research by extending the cognition-affection-connation framework to online contexts and by illustrating the essential role of platform attachment derived from the client-platform relationship in driving clients' repurchase behaviors in platform-based businesses.