Understanding post-Adoption regret from the perspectives of herding and mindfulness

Abstract

In the era of multiple technologies, people may herd in technology adoption to save costs. However, they may regret for not choosing a foregone technology later although they are satisfied with the chosen technology. The extant continuance studies have extensively studied how users evaluate the focal technology after adoption, but somewhat overlooking users' considerations on foregone technologies. In this study, we introduce the notion of post-Adoption regret, which considers both the chosen and foregone technologies. We develop a research model based on the literature on regret, herd behavior, and mindfulness. The model depicts how herd behavior induces regret and how regret affects user satisfaction, as well as the subsequent continuance and switching intention. As a remedy for such regret resulting from herding, mindfulness of technology adoption is proposed as a legitimate strategy for technology adoption in parallel with herd in technology adoption. We tested our model through a longitudinal study.