Page 144 - 33-3

Understanding People's Switching Intentions of Health Apps from Exterior and Interior Drivers

2.5 Habits
Habits are identified as “learned sequences of acts that have become automatic
responses to specific situations and are functional in obtaining certain goals or end-
stated” (Verplanken and Aarts, 1999). Most peoples’ actions are based on a foundation of

convention. Habits can be considered as psychological temperaments meant to duplicate
past behavior. With recurring behavior, people gradually react to this kind of repetitive
behavior (Wood and Neal, 2007, 2009). Most researchers believe that habits are usually

derived from the pursuit of goals, because people may repeat actions which are beneficial
to them or produce expected results (Ouellette and Wood, 1998; Colgate and Danaher,
2000; Gefen, 2003).
In the field of management information systems (MIS), IS habit is primarily an
automatic behavioral tendency due to satisfaction and previous frequency of use. User

satisfaction may increase because a certain behavior is performed frequently. In addition,
IS habit has evolved over time and is often embedded in higher-level work for larger and
frequently practiced routines or tasks (Polites and Karahanna, 2012). However, existing

IS practices embedded in these routines can hinder the adoption and use of new systems
when new systems are introduced to replace existing systems. Consequently, according
to the above discussion, this study explores whether habits can negatively affect users’
switching intention.

2.6 Switching Intention
Switching intention refers to the desire to leave a relationship or the degree of
intention to terminate a partnership (Ping, 1993). Keaveney (1995) is one of the early

scholars who studies the switching intentions of customers in the service industry. In the
results of a critical incident study conducted in over 500 service customers, more than 800
reasons are found to reveal why customers want to switch services. Switching intention
mainly comes from the evaluation results after the consumer uses a product or service
(Keaveney, 1995). There are two evaluation methods: (1) satisfaction with the product, i.e.,

when the satisfaction is high, the willingness to accept the service is enhanced; (2) relative
ratio assessment, i.e., when the consumer believes that the current brand is not as good
as other brands, switching intention increases. Following the study of Keaveney (1995),

many studies have been conducting surveys of customers’ switching behaviors in various

136