Online services (OLS) provide billions of Internet users with a variety of opportunities to exchange goods, share information, and develop or maintain relationships. Popular examples of OLS web sites include eBay.com, Amazon.com, Dell.com, Craigslist.com, MSN.com, Yahoo.com, LinkedIn.com, Zillow.com, Facebook.com, Wikipedia.com, and Twitter.com. As OLS continue to grow in popularity and absorb more of people's time and attention, users are confronted with the decision whether to continue using a particular OLS in favor of alternative services or activities. Understanding the mechanisms by which people choose to continue to use OLS represents an important issue for service providers, organizations, and web site designers. To better understand why people continue to use OLS after initial acceptance, this study draws on the marketing's service value framework and Information Systems' (IS) expectation-confirmation literature. This study proposes a value model of OLS continuance whereby users trade-off utilitarian and hedonic benefits against costs (e.g., effort, risks, and price) accruing from using an OLS to determine the value gained from the usage experience. This value assessment is made relative to users' expectations, driving satisfaction and continued use. To empirically examine this conceptual model, this study refines and tests the model in the context of online social networking services (OSNS), one of the most popular and rapidly growing types of OLS (e.g., Facebook, MySpace). The refined model is validated through structural equation analyses based on a longitudinal survey. Results support the value model as a strong predictor of the cognitions and behaviors of OLS continuance. This research contributes to IS theory by developing a conceptual value model of OLS continuance that treats the user as a service customer. It was demonstrated that this conceptual model can be contextualized to unique OLS types such as OSNS, where it was found that utilitarian and hedonic benefits are most significant in customers' service value assessments. For business practice, this research provides a framework whereby service providers can improve their online service web sites to maintain loyalty by understanding usage continuance. Limitations and future research are discussed. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]