Investigation of continuance stream-watching intention: an empirical study

With the popularity of live streaming, viewers have been found to spend an increasing number of hours on stream-watching in a continuous manner. Why users choose to watch streams for the first time has been well explored. However, continuance stream-watching phenomenon has not been investigated enough. Given the importance of accumulating loyal user base for all live streaming platforms, accumulating users can be equally important to attracting new users. However, understanding in the continuance behavior seems to receive limited investigation in the live streaming context. This study introduced expectation–confirmation theory (ECT) to explain how continuance stream-watching behavior is cultivated. Before, ECT has been extensively applied to explain continuance intention. However, most ECT-based models are not adequate to predict continuance watching intention in the digital context since they only emphasize on users’ perceived benefits and costs of watching but neglect the influence of uses’ sunk costs. Therefore, this paper proposes a new research model in which perceived benefits, perceived sacrifices and perceived sunk costs are included. Our proposed model was empirically validated by an online survey (N = 438). It provides theoretical evidence of antecedents of viewers’ continuance watching intention. This paper advances our understanding in continuance behavior in live streaming. It discusses practical implications and provides strategies to live streaming platforms as well as streamers.