Understanding the role of gender in bloggers' switching behavior Kem Z.K. Zhang a, ⁎, Matthew K.O. Lee b , Christy M.K. Cheung c , Huaping Chen d a University of Science and Technology of China-City University of Hong Kong Joint Advanced Research Center, Hong Kong SAR, China b Department of Information Systems, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China c Department of Finance and Decision Sciences, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong SAR, China d School of Computer Science and Technology, University of Science and Technology of China, China abstract article info Article history: Received 26 December 2008 Received in revised form 17 April 2009 Accepted 24 May 2009 Available online 28 May 2009 Keywords: Blog Social computing Gender Intention to switch Satisfaction Sunk costs Attractive alternatives Post-adoption Blog has become an increasingly popular form of social networking technology in recent years. Many world famous web sites (e.g., Microsoft, Yahoo!, and Google) are providing blog services on the Internet. Bloggers, therefore, can easily establish and maintain their blogs through such services. However, research on blogs' adoption and diffusion is rare. In this study, we attempt to study bloggers' post-adoption behaviors. We examine bloggers' intention to switch their blog services by building upon studies in the marketing and IS literature. Particularly, the role of gender is explored and an online survey is conducted to test the research model. Findings confirm that bloggers' intention to switch their blog services is strongly associated with three factors: satisfaction, sunk costs, and attractive alternatives. Meanwhile, moderating effects are found in gender, but not in sunk costs. Implications for both researchers and practitioners are provided. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Blogs are web pages that allow owners to publish their content online in a reverse chronological order [29]. Appearing in the mid-1990s, it has become an increasingly popular form of social networking technology in recent years [60]. Bloggers can use their blogs to present themselves and interact with others [32]. According to Pew Internet & American Life Project, 55% of online teens use social networking sites [43], and more than 8% of Internet users are bloggers in the US [42]. As a widely recognized blog tracking site, Technorati claims that it is tracking 112.8 million blogs on the Internet [62] and the number is growing fast. Many world famous web sites, such as Microsoft, Yahoo!, and Google, are providing blog services. Bloggers, therefore, can easily establish and maintain their blogs through these blog services [31]. For example, Google's Blogger.com is one of the most popular sites providing blog service [42]. A user can create a blog and post the first entry within minutes. Also, it is very easy to pick from various design templates, to decorate the blog with a drag-and-drop layout system, and to control visitors' permissions to read or comment on the blog [47]. Compared with blog's rapid development, research on its adoption and diffusion is rare. Blog researchers in Information Systems (IS) have only recently begun to pay their attention on blog acceptance. For instance, Ma et al. [48] built upon the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model of Venkatesh et al. [66] to examine bloggers' acceptance of blogs; Hsu and Lin [31] integrated factors from the literature of technology acceptance, knowledge sharing, and social influence to study the motivations of participating in blog activities. It has been suggested that adoption and acceptance of technologies is an important domain in IS field [1,64]. Considerable attention has been paid, and many researchers have devoted to this area [10]. In recent years, post-adoption research is gaining more and more interest as well (e.g., [2,7,8,33]). Some researchers argue that the success of information technology relies more on individuals' continuance usage rather than on the initial usage or adoption of IT [8,30]. This would be particularly significant for subscription-based online services, because the con- tinuance usage of these services is closely related to the profits [7,55,59]. In the case of blog service, although it is usually provided for free, blogs can attract a number of visitors. As the saying of “where there are eyeballs, there are business models” [61 , p. 25], advertisements in these blogs could be an important income source for the blog service-hosting sites. It is estimated that, in the US, blog advertising revenue will increase from $283 million in 2007 to $768 million in 2012 [67]. Therefore, in this study, we follow the trend of post-adoption research, and study bloggers' switching intention in blog services. It refers to the bloggers' intention to switch to other blog services. Gender issue is another emphasis in this paper. It has been claimed to play an interesting role in blogs [63]. Many blog studies have implied Decision Support Systems 47 (2009) 540–546 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: zzkkem@mail.ustc.edu.cn (K.Z.K. Zhang), ismatlee@cityu.edu.hk (M.K.O. Lee), ccheung@hkbu.edu.hk (C.M.K. Cheung), hpchen@ustc.edu.cn (H. Chen). 0167-9236/$ – see front matter © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.dss.2009.05.013 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Decision Support Systems journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/dss