  Information technology and software services are pervasive, occupying the
centre of most aspects of contemporary societies. This has given rise to
commonly expected norms and expectations around how such systems should work,
appropriate penalties for violating these expectations, and more importantly,
indicators of how to reduce the consequences of violations and sanctions.
Evidence for expectation violations and ensuing sanctions exists in a range of
portals used by individuals and groups to start new friendships, explore new
ideas, and provide feedback for products and services. Therein lies insights
that could lead to functional socio-technical systems, and general awareness
and anticipations of human actions (and interactions) when using information
technology and software services. However, limited previous work has examined
such artifacts to provide these understandings. To contribute to such
understandings and theoretical advancement we study expectation violations in
mobile apps, considered among the most engaging socio-technical systems. We
used content analysis and expectancy violation theory (EVT) and expectation
confirmation theory (ECT) to explore the evidence and nature of sanctions in
app reviews for a specific domain of apps. Our outcomes show that users respond
to expectation violation with sanctions when their app does not work as
anticipated, developers seem to target specific market niches when providing
services in an app domain, and users within an app domain respond with similar
sanctions. We contribute to the advancement of expectation violation theories,
and we provide practical insights for the mobile app community.
