Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Consumer susceptibility to social influence in new product diffusion networks: how does network location matter?

Consumer susceptibility to social influence in new product diffusion networks: how does network... This study aims to empirically investigate how susceptibility to social influence in new product adoption varies with one’s structural location in a social network.Design/methodology/approachThe social network data were collected based on a sociometric network survey with 589 undergraduate students. Social network analysis and ordinary least squares regression analyses were used to test the hypotheses.FindingsThis study finds that consumers with high degree centrality (i.e. hubs) who have a large number of connections to others and consumers with high betweenness centrality (i.e. bridges) who connect otherwise distant groups in social networks are both less sensitive to informational influence from others. More importantly, the authors find evidence that consumers with moderate levels of degree/betweenness centrality are more susceptible to normative influence and status competition than those with low or high degree/betweenness centrality. The inverse-U patterns in the above relations are consistent with middle-status conformity and anxiety.Research limitations/implicationsThis research complements social influence and new product diffusion research by documenting important contingencies (i.e. network locations) in consumer susceptibility to different types of social influence from a social network perspective.Practical implicationsThe findings will assist marketers to leverage social influence by activating relevant social ties with effective messages in their network marketing strategies.Originality/valueThis research provides a better understanding of the mechanisms driving susceptibility to social influence in new product diffusion. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png European Journal of Marketing Emerald Publishing

Consumer susceptibility to social influence in new product diffusion networks: how does network location matter?

European Journal of Marketing , Volume 55 (5): 20 – May 11, 2021

Loading next page...
 
/lp/emerald-publishing/consumer-susceptibility-to-social-influence-in-new-product-diffusion-1nY9f1ON6i

References (80)

Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
© Emerald Publishing Limited
ISSN
0309-0566
DOI
10.1108/ejm-06-2019-0491
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

This study aims to empirically investigate how susceptibility to social influence in new product adoption varies with one’s structural location in a social network.Design/methodology/approachThe social network data were collected based on a sociometric network survey with 589 undergraduate students. Social network analysis and ordinary least squares regression analyses were used to test the hypotheses.FindingsThis study finds that consumers with high degree centrality (i.e. hubs) who have a large number of connections to others and consumers with high betweenness centrality (i.e. bridges) who connect otherwise distant groups in social networks are both less sensitive to informational influence from others. More importantly, the authors find evidence that consumers with moderate levels of degree/betweenness centrality are more susceptible to normative influence and status competition than those with low or high degree/betweenness centrality. The inverse-U patterns in the above relations are consistent with middle-status conformity and anxiety.Research limitations/implicationsThis research complements social influence and new product diffusion research by documenting important contingencies (i.e. network locations) in consumer susceptibility to different types of social influence from a social network perspective.Practical implicationsThe findings will assist marketers to leverage social influence by activating relevant social ties with effective messages in their network marketing strategies.Originality/valueThis research provides a better understanding of the mechanisms driving susceptibility to social influence in new product diffusion.

Journal

European Journal of MarketingEmerald Publishing

Published: May 11, 2021

Keywords: Social influence; Social network analysis; Degree centrality; Betweenness centrality; New product diffusion

There are no references for this article.