Information systems attachment: An empirical exploration of its antecedents and its impact on community participation intention

With the increasing use of information systems (IS) in our everyday lives, people may feel an attachment to their software applications beyond simply perceiving them as a tool for enhancing task performance. However, attachment is still a largely unexplored concept in both IS research and practice. Drawing from the literature on attachment in consumer behavior research and auxiliary theories in IS use and community participation research, this study theoretically identifies and empirically explores the concept of attachment and its antecedents (i.e., relative visual aesthetics, personalization, relative performance) and outcome (i.e., community participation intention) in the IS context. Using web browsers as the target IS, an online survey was conducted. Results show that relative expressive visual aesthetics is the strongest antecedent of IS attachment, and that personalization is the second strongest antecedent of IS attachment, followed by relative performance. Furthermore, this study reveals that IS attachment has a strong positive impact on community participation intention. This study contributes theoretically and empirically to the body of IS use research and has managerial implications, suggesting that although superior performance is a necessary condition for attachment formation, improving users' experience through expressive visual aesthetics and personalization is critical to build strong attachment relationships with users.