How Loyal Are Your Users? Loyalty and Loyalty Outcome Behaviors: An Empirical Study in the Free/Libre Open Source Software Context

The contemporary IS industry faces a challenge that is similar to brand proliferation in consumer products, that of identifying and nurturing loyal IS users. Also, there has been a growing interest in potential benefits that can be derived from loyal users\u27 contributions to IS, such as word of mouth (WOM) marketing, non-verbal endorsement, resistance to counter-persuasion, and brand extension behaviors. To address the increasing competition and the growing interest in user contributions in the IS industry, this study proposes a conceptual model to examine the relationships between loyalty and habit and their antecedents (satisfaction and investment), and the relationships between loyalty and habit and their outcome behaviors (WOM, non-verbal endorsement, resistance to counter-persuasion, and brand extension) in the presence of a moderating factor (s). The proposed model will be empirically tested in the Free/Libre Open Source Software context as it is one of the driving forces for the increasing competition in the consumer software market and as Free/Libre Open Source Software ideology may potentially moderate the relationship between loyalty and its outcome behaviors