Perceived Threat or Performance Beliefs? What Drives Intention to Continue Usage of Digital Service Apps

In today's smartphone era, digital service applications are essential to most people's daily lives. Even though users get to leverage digital service apps to derive multiple benefits, a big deterrent to continued usage is that users must constantly deal with issues related to invasion of privacy. Borrowing from Technology Threat Avoidance Theory and Multi-motive Information Systems Continuance model, we develop a research model that explains users’ intention to continue usage of digital service apps considering both perceived threat and performance beliefs. We test our hypotheses through an empirical study of 256 data points collected from users of these apps. Our findings reveal that while the perceived threat does not have an effect, performance beliefs strongly influence users’ intention to continue usage. Through this research, we contribute to the broader IT adoption studies specifically focused on user motivations to make decisions on the continuance intention of these apps.