EXTENDING INFORMATION SYSTEMS USE CONTINUANCE RESEARCH: COMPETING PERSPECTIVES ON THE EFFECTS OF TECHNOLOGICAL EVENTS ON THE EXPECTATION-CONFIRMATION MODEL

The use of computers by employees in the workplace is a given. Although a core focus of the Information Systems (IS) field has been to study employees’ use of Information Technology (IT), we still know little about employees’ experiences with Information Technology (IT) and the relative importance of specific negative and positive IT events for employees’ IT evaluations and continuance decisions. Thus, this paper extends the IS expectation-confirmation model on use continuance by examining how employees’ events with IT influence the confirmation construct from two competing perspectives: cognitive consistency vs. rationalization of behaviors. Furthermore, the two perspectives also hint at the inclusion of habit as either a potential moderator to the event-confirmation link or as a direct factor influencing the confirmation construct. To test the predictions from the two perspectives, data of employees were gathered through a survey that followed a critical incident methodology. Results demonstrate support for the rationalization of behavior perspective: a) there is a positive link between the valence of an event and confirmation, b) negative events have a weaker effect than positive one on confirmation, and c) habit has a direct effect on confirmation. The paper ends with a discussion of implications for the IS field