The antecedents of consumers' loyalty toward Internet service providers

Internet popularity is growing at an impressive rate. Sooner or later, every consumer comes face to face with the decision of choosing an Internet Service Provider (ISP). This study developed and empirically tested a model examining the antecedents of consumer loyalty toward ISPs. It incorporated the concept of expected technology change into the model to examine its effects on the formation of ISP loyalty intention. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CIA) was performed to examine the reliability and validity of the measurement model, and the structural equation modeling techniques were used to evaluate the casual model. Based on an internet survey in Taiwan, this study showed that perceived value is very important in generating overall customer satisfaction and loyalty intention toward an ISP, and that perceived trust of an ISP enhances perceived value, overall satisfaction, and loyalty intention. However, the study demonstrated that future ISP technology expectancy exerted a negative influence on a consumer's overall satisfaction and loyalty intention toward their ISR (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.