Exploring continuance intention of social networking sites An empirical study integrating social support and network externalities

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore the determinants of continuance intention of social networking site (SNS) users through a new perspective and discuss how to retain SNS users. Design/methodology/approach - The author proposed a research model by integrating network externalities and social support. Three dimensions of social support and two types of network externalities were analyzed, respectively, to explore the direct and indirect effects on continuance intention. Online questionnaires were adopted to collect data, and 513 valid samples were analyzed by structural equation modeling approach. Findings - The findings show that network externalities have a significant indirect effect on user' continuance intention through the mediation effects of social support, and among the three dimensions of social support, network management plays a more important role on continuance intention. Research limitations/implications - The findings suggest that network externalities can trigger the function of social support to keep the "stickiness" of SNS users, and network management is the key dimension of online social support. Some other theoretical and practical implications are also provided. Originality/value - The study is novel in exploring users' continuance intention of SNSs by integrating social support and network externalities. Meanwhile, the author also intends to compare the effect of different dimensions of social support on SNS usage and discuss their internal relationships.