Investigation of temporal dissociation and focused immersion as moderators of satisfaction–continuance intention relationship: Smartphone as an example

• Influence of customer satisfaction on continuance intention is complex.
• Showed that temporal dissociation moderates the above relationship negatively.
• Focused immersion is not a moderator of the above relationship.
• Smartphone applications with high temporal dissociation content may “win” other applications.

Previous studies have suggested that the influence of customer satisfaction on loyalty is more complex than it might seem at first sight. The IS Continuance Theory states that satisfaction leads to continuance intention. Through the context of users using the applications of smartphone, this study found that temporal dissociation moderates the satisfaction–continuance intention relationship negatively. However, focused immersion is not a moderator. There is a paucity of research into the implication of cognitive absorption for continued IT usage and the moderating role of temporal dissociation and focused immersion on relationship between satisfaction and continuance intention. This study fills these literature gaps. Though temporal absorption and focused immersion are often treated as two of the dimensions of cognitive absorption, handling them separately can provide useful insights on their dynamics. This study suggests that with many competing smartphone applications serving as substitutes, application software developers should not ignore the moderating role of temporal dissociation. They can design more applications that lead users to be unaware of the passage of time when using them. Such kind of applications may compete and “win” other applications with higher satisfaction but weak temporal dissociation content, thus resulting in continuance usage.