earticle

영어

Smartphones have affected considerably people’ lives. Some previous studies have examined the dark side of the smartphone trend such as dependency and addiction. Other studies have analyzed the bright side of dependency and addiction. This study is tending to the latter. This paper aims to investigate the link between social factor and behavioral intentions of smartphone users through the roles of dependency and addiction. It is also to identify whether dependency and addiction of psychological factors can affect behavioral intention of smartphone users. We conducted an empirical study consisting of 217 respondents who live in Gyeongnam province in South Korea. The results suggested that social needs and influence have positive effects on dependency and social influence has a positive effect on addiction. Dependency has positive effects on addiction and customer satisfaction. Addiction has a positive effect on customer loyalty. Customer satisfaction has a positive effect on customer loyalty. Customer loyalty has a positive effect on switching barriers. Meanwhile, the impacts of dependency and addiction on switching barriers are not significant. The impacts of dependency on customer loyalty and addiction on customer satisfaction are not significant. Thus, smartphone companies can use psychological addiction to sustain customer satisfaction and loyalty.