An empirical study on the influential factors affecting continuous usage of mobile cloud service

Diffusion of smart devices, explosive growth of SNSs, increased speed of mobile network, alongside with the rapid development of ICT, all allow provision and use of many services on smart (mobile) devices, which have been provided in the wired network environment. Particularly, the use of a cloud service that allows users to access it in any place and at any time has increased on mobile devices, as well as on PCs. However, as compared to wired services, wireless services are likely to be exposed to the risk of security breach. This may inhibit the penetration of technologies. The purpose of the present study is to identify the factors that affect the intention of a continuous use (continuous intention) of mobile cloud services. For that purpose, the present study analyzes the effects of security breach risk on trust and the intention of a continuous use. The results of our analysis indicate the risks relevant to service authentication. Specifically, fault recovery and compliance exerted significant effects on trust and the continuous use intention. However, we also found that the service interruption risk and the personal information leakage risk have a significant influence on trust only. On the other hand, our findings demonstrate that trust also significantly affects the intention of a continuous use. Therefore, when a strategic decision making is considered a requisite to induce a continuous use, it is advisable to opt for and control the technologies relevant to service authentication, fault recovery, and compliance risks instead of those related to the disruption of services or leakage of personal information. Therefore, it appears to be imperative to adopt an integrated management and support process for developing a service equipped with security information technologies facilitating the continuity of businesses.