Explaining Instant Messaging Continuance Intention: The Role of Personality

The Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality is widely used to predict cognitions, attitudes, and behaviors in management and psychological research. However, the FFM personality has seldom appeared in the information system (IS) research field. Devaraj, Easley, and Crant (2008) first introduced FFM into the context of IS acceptance. This study extends to the context of IS continuance. The proposed model is developed and empirically validated using data from a field survey in order to examine how individuals' personality traits influence their IS continuance intentions. The data were collected from a public university in China via an online survey. The findings support that user satisfaction and perceived usefulness are key to continuance intention of instant messaging use. The results also support that perceived enjoyment and perceived usefulness are positively associated with user satisfaction. Perceived enjoyment is the dominant variable affecting user satisfaction with technology use. Two personality traits of the Big Five factors (i.e., Conscientiousness and Extraversion) have direct effects on perceived enjoyment, whereas the other three (i.e., Openness to Experience, Neuroticism, and Agreeableness) have no direct effects. Our study provides an important basis for better understanding how individuals' personality characteristics influence their technology continuance.