A Study On Users’ Switch Intentions In Social Networking Sites

Social Networking Sites is a breakthrough application of web2.0. As a new way of communication and entertainment, Social Networking Sites developed quickly in the whole world. However, some problems have been shown up, the scale of customers is shrinking and the development of Social Networking Sites run into the bottleneck since2010. How to maintain customers, raise customers’adhesiveness and decrease switch intentions have been drawing more and more attention of the providers of Social Networking Sites.In this research, PPM (Push-Pull-Mooring) model and DeLone&McLean Information Systems Success Model are applied to investigate the users’intentions of Social Networking Sites. The mainly practice implication of this research is to give a clear and full picture of users’need and features of behavior in the experience of using Social Network Sites, so that effective users retain decisions would be made corresponding by the providers of the Social Network Sites. Based on the literature review and theory model of customers’switch intentions of Social Networking Sites, a questionnaire is designed and445respondents are collected on the Internet. After checking the data reliability and validity, two items are deleted. Then, LISREL8.7is used to estimate and adjust the model. All the model-fit indices exceeded the respective common acceptance levels suggested by previous research, demonstrating that the measurement model exhibit a good fit the data collected.In the final model of users’ switch intentions of Social Networking Sites, results confirmed the significant negative influence of satisfaction to switching intentions, the significant negative influence of social function provided by Social Networking Sites to switching intentions, the significant negative influence of switching costs to switching intentions, the significant positive influence of alternative attractiveness to switching intentions. At last five suggestions are made to the Social Networking Sites’ providers based on the final model.There are five chapters in this research. The content of each chapter are introduced as following:Chapterl, Introduction. The background, focus area, definition of Social Networking Sites and Switch Intentions, methods, the theoretical and practical implications, innovation of this research are introduced.Chapter2, Literature review. Firstly, literature review about the models and measurements used in the related research are given. Then, PPM (Push-Pull-Mooring) model and DeLone&McLean Information Systems Success Model which are used in this research are introduced.Chapter3, Construction of users’switch intentions model. There are three sections in this chapter. In the first section, the measurements of users’ satisfaction, alternative attractiveness and switch intentions are established. In the second part, all hypotheses in this research are listed. In the third section, the big picture of users’ switch intentions model in Social Networking Site are given.Chapter4, Practical experiment on users’switch intentions model in Social Networking Sites. There are six sections in this Chapter. In the first section, the design of the questionnaire and sample distribution are introduced. In the second section, the reliability of the data is verified. In the third section, the validity of the data is tested by exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. In the fourth section, a final model is given by model estimation and modification. In the fifth section all the results in the final model are explained. In the sixth section, five corresponding suggestions are proposed to the SNS providers.Chapter5, Conclusion. Firstly, the main achievement of this thesis is summarized. Secondly, the shortcomings of this thesis are presented. Finally, the future work on users’ switch intentions in Social Networking Sites is pointed out.