The effects of post-adoption beliefs on continuance use of a microblogging service: the role of network externalities

Abstract

Users of the Chinese microblogging service have fallen a lot from 308.6 million in 2012 to 280.8 million in 2013 after an explosive growth in 2010. This fact drives us to consider why people join and continue to use microblogging. This study combined network externalities and expectation-confirmation theory of IS continuance, collected and analysed data of 532 samples by structural equation modelling (SEM) approach. The findings show that satisfaction is the most influential factor in people's continued use of microblogging, followed by usefulness. The perceived complementarity and the number of peers have significant effect on perceived usefulness, but the number of members has no significant effect on perceived usefulness. The perceived complementarity, number of members, and number of peers have significant effects on expectation confirmation. The implication of research and discussions provides reference for microblogging operators in marketing and operation.