Understanding the discontinuance behavior of mobile shoppers as a consequence of technostress: An application of the stress-coping theory

Abstract

Despite the increasing popularity of mobile applications in commerce, there exists an emerging trend where users are abandoning these applications due to the abuse of push notification. This study applies the stress-coping theory to investigate this phenomenon. A 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design experiment with manipulations on perceived information overload, perceived intrusiveness, and perceived reward is conducted in this study. The results show that users are affected by perceived information overload and perceived intrusiveness from push notifications in shopping applications and they deal with these stresses by using disturbance handling strategies and self-preservation strategies. The application varies with different reward systems. Specifically, high levels of reward can encourage disturbance handling strategies and decrease self-preservation strategies. In addition, with high perceived information control and self-efficacy in using mobile devices, users prefer to take actions to handle the disturbances. Finally, disturbance handling strategies prohibit discontinuance behavior, whereas self-preservation strategies encourage quitting behavior. The results of this study benefit both mobile shopping apps users who are in danger of stressors to develop proper strategies and actions to protect themselves and retailers who use applications on smartphones to provide products and services to obtain access to users more efficiently.