Technology socialness and Web site satisfaction

This paper extends the use of expectation confirmation theory through the development of a “socialness” construct, modeled as an antecedent of satisfaction. Personalization is introduced as an antecedent of socialness and satisfaction. The model is developed and tested using the corporate Web site of a large European utility and two rounds of surveys (n = 3284 and n = 2161 respectively). The results show that socialness has a strong association with satisfaction, and personalization with both socialness and satisfaction. We found a weaker albeit significant relationship between satisfaction and continuance intention than in Bhattacherjee's original study. We argue that this variation in findings can be explained by the extent to which usage of the information system is optional and develop the idea of exclusive informational sites. In such situations satisfaction becomes a key outcome variable, making antecedents of satisfaction – such as socialness – particularly relevant and important to the Web site design process.