IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbrese/v82y2018icp160-170.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

When are influentials equally influenceable? The strength of strong ties in new product adoption

Author

Listed:
  • Zhang, Honghong
  • Fam, Kim-Shyan
  • Goh, Tiong-Thye
  • Dai, Xin

Abstract

We study the relationship between opinion leadership and susceptibility to social influence in new product adoption and how this relationship varies with tie strength in social networks. Data analysis based on a sociometric survey indicates that opinion leaders are less sensitive to informational influence than non‑leaders. Furthermore, individuals with moderate levels of leadership are more susceptible to normative influence than individuals with high or low levels of leadership. We also find evidence of the moderating effect of tie strength. While opinion leaders are less susceptible to informational influence from weak-tie peers, they are equally sensitive to informational influence from strong-tie peers as non‑leaders. More interestingly, the inverse-U relationship between self-reported leadership and normative influence holds for strong ties, whereas this pattern between sociometric leadership and normative influence holds for weak ties. These findings have implications for better understanding how social influence operates over social networks in new product adoption.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhang, Honghong & Fam, Kim-Shyan & Goh, Tiong-Thye & Dai, Xin, 2018. "When are influentials equally influenceable? The strength of strong ties in new product adoption," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 160-170.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:82:y:2018:i:c:p:160-170
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2017.09.013
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296317303314
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbusres.2017.09.013?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Raghuram Iyengar & Christophe Van den Bulte & Jae Young Lee, 2015. "Social Contagion in New Product Trial and Repeat," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 34(3), pages 408-429, May.
    2. Raghuram Iyengar & Christophe Van den Bulte & Thomas W. Valente, 2011. "Opinion Leadership and Social Contagion in New Product Diffusion," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(2), pages 195-212, 03-04.
    3. Viswanath Venkatesh, 2000. "Determinants of Perceived Ease of Use: Integrating Control, Intrinsic Motivation, and Emotion into the Technology Acceptance Model," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 11(4), pages 342-365, December.
    4. De Bruyn, Arnaud & Lilien, Gary L., 2008. "A multi-stage model of word-of-mouth influence through viral marketing," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 151-163.
    5. Bearden, William O & Netemeyer, Richard G & Teel, Jesse E, 1989. "Measurement of Consumer Susceptibility to Interpersonal Influence," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 15(4), pages 473-481, March.
    6. Frenzen, Jonathan K & Davis, Harry L, 1990. "Purchasing Behavior in Embedded Markets," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 17(1), pages 1-12, June.
    7. Martin, William C. & Lueg, Jason E., 2013. "Modeling word-of-mouth usage," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(7), pages 801-808.
    8. Sinan Aral & Dylan Walker, 2014. "Tie Strength, Embeddedness, and Social Influence: A Large-Scale Networked Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(6), pages 1352-1370, June.
    9. Hinz, Oliver & Schulze, Christian & Takac, Carsten, 2014. "New product adoption in social networks: Why direction matters," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 2836-2844.
    10. Vishal Narayan & Vithala R. Rao & Carolyne Saunders, 2011. "How Peer Influence Affects Attribute Preferences: A Bayesian Updating Mechanism," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(2), pages 368-384, 03-04.
    11. Hinz, Oliver & Skiera, Bernd & Barrot, Christian & Becker, Jan, 2011. "Seeding Strategies for Viral Marketing: An Empirical Comparison," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 56543, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    12. Dowling, Grahame R & Staelin, Richard, 1994. "A Model of Perceived Risk and Intended Risk-Handling Activity," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 21(1), pages 119-134, June.
    13. Steenkamp, Jan-Benedict E M & Gielens, Katrijn, 2003. "Consumer and Market Drivers of the Trial Probability of New Consumer Packaged Goods," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 30(3), pages 368-384, December.
    14. Sinan Aral, 2011. "Commentary--Identifying Social Influence: A Comment on Opinion Leadership and Social Contagion in New Product Diffusion," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(2), pages 217-223, 03-04.
    15. Christophe Van den Bulte & Stefan Stremersch, 2004. "Social Contagion and Income Heterogeneity in New Product Diffusion: A Meta-Analytic Test," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(4), pages 530-544, July.
    16. Naresh K. Malhotra & Sung S. Kim & Ashutosh Patil, 2006. "Common Method Variance in IS Research: A Comparison of Alternative Approaches and a Reanalysis of Past Research," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(12), pages 1865-1883, December.
    17. Brown, Jacqueline Johnson & Reingen, Peter H, 1987. "Social Ties and Word-of-Mouth Referral Behavior," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 14(3), pages 350-362, December.
    18. Peres, Renana & Muller, Eitan & Mahajan, Vijay, 2010. "Innovation diffusion and new product growth models: A critical review and research directions," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 91-106.
    19. Yansong Hu & Christophe Van den Bulte, 2014. "Nonmonotonic Status Effects in New Product Adoption," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 33(4), pages 509-533, July.
    20. Park, C Whan & Lessig, V Parker, 1977. "Students and Housewives: Differences in Susceptibility to Reference Group Influence," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 4(2), pages 102-110, Se.
    21. Burnkrant, Robert E & Cousineau, Alain, 1975. "Informational and Normative Social Influence in Buyer Behavior," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 2(3), pages 206-215, December.
    22. Gentina, Elodie & Butori, Raphaëlle & Heath, Timothy B., 2014. "Unique but integrated: The role of individuation and assimilation processes in teen opinion leadership," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 83-91.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wang, Le & Luo, Xin (Robert) & Li, Han, 2022. "Envy or conformity? An empirical investigation of peer influence on the purchase of non-functional items in mobile free-to-play games," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 308-324.
    2. Wang, Nan & Xie, Wenxuan & Ali, Ahsan & Brem, Alexander & Wang, Shouyang, 2022. "How do individual characteristics and social capital shape users’ continuance intentions of smart wearable products?," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    3. Jie Gu & Yunjie Xu, 2022. "Battle of positioning: exploring the role of bridges in competitive diffusion," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 319-350, May.
    4. Hailin Xiao & Xiaocai Zhang, 2022. "The Market Disruption Path of Green-Oriented Trajectory-Transformed Technology Innovation: A Study of Consumer Lifestyles during the “Chasm” in China’s Electric Vehicle Market," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-27, July.
    5. Bu, Yi & Parkinson, Joy & Thaichon, Park, 2022. "Influencer marketing: Homophily, customer value co-creation behaviour and purchase intention," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    6. Romero-Rodríguez, Margarita E. & Rodríguez-Donate, M. Carolina & Hernández-García, M. Carmen & Rodríguez-Brito, M. Gracia, 2020. "Influence of opinion leadership identification criteria: The purchase of smartphones," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    7. Casaló, Luis V. & Flavián, Carlos & Ibáñez-Sánchez, Sergio, 2020. "Influencers on Instagram: Antecedents and consequences of opinion leadership," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 510-519.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Muller, Eitan & Peres, Renana, 2019. "The effect of social networks structure on innovation performance: A review and directions for research," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 3-19.
    2. Shan Huang & Sinan Aral & Yu Jeffrey Hu & Erik Brynjolfsson, 2020. "Social Advertising Effectiveness Across Products: A Large-Scale Field Experiment," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(6), pages 1142-1165, November.
    3. Landsman, Vardit & Nitzan, Irit, 2020. "Cross-decision social effects in product adoption and defection decisions," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 213-235.
    4. Yuho Chung & Yiwei Li & Jianmin Jia, 2021. "Exploring embeddedness, centrality, and social influence on backer behavior: the role of backer networks in crowdfunding," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 49(5), pages 925-946, September.
    5. Jing Wang & Anocha Aribarg & Yves F. Atchadé, 2013. "Modeling Choice Interdependence in a Social Network," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 32(6), pages 977-997, November.
    6. Nejad, Mohammad G. & Amini, Mehdi & Babakus, Emin, 2015. "Success Factors in Product Seeding: The Role of Homophily," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 68-88.
    7. Florian Probst & Laura Grosswiele & Regina Pfleger, 2013. "Who will lead and who will follow: Identifying Influential Users in Online Social Networks," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 5(3), pages 179-193, June.
    8. Raghuram Iyengar & Christophe Van den Bulte & Jae Young Lee, 2015. "Social Contagion in New Product Trial and Repeat," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 34(3), pages 408-429, May.
    9. Sinan Aral & Dylan Walker, 2014. "Tie Strength, Embeddedness, and Social Influence: A Large-Scale Networked Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(6), pages 1352-1370, June.
    10. Yadav, Manjit S. & de Valck, Kristine & Hennig-Thurau, Thorsten & Hoffman, Donna L. & Spann, Martin, 2013. "Social Commerce: A Contingency Framework for Assessing Marketing Potential," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 311-323.
    11. Sarah Gelper & Ralf van der Lans & Gerrit van Bruggen, 2021. "Competition for Attention in Online Social Networks: Implications for Seeding Strategies," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(2), pages 1026-1047, February.
    12. Pescher, Christian & Reichhart, Philipp & Spann, Martin, 2014. "Consumer Decision-making Processes in Mobile Viral Marketing Campaigns," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 43-54.
    13. Pyo, Tae-Hyung & Tamrakar, Chanchal & Lee, Jae Young & Choi, Yun Seob, 2023. "Is social capital always “Capital”?: Measuring and leveraging social capital in online user communities for in-group diffusion," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    14. Yansong Hu & Christophe Van den Bulte, 2014. "Nonmonotonic Status Effects in New Product Adoption," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 33(4), pages 509-533, July.
    15. Bhukya, Ramulu & Paul, Justin, 2023. "Social influence research in consumer behavior: What we learned and what we need to learn? – A hybrid systematic literature review," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    16. Jansen, Nora & Hinz, Oliver, 2022. "Inferring opinion leadership from digital footprints," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 1123-1137.
    17. Xiao Han & Leye Wang & Weiguo Fan, 2023. "Cost-Effective Social Media Influencer Marketing," INFORMS Journal on Computing, INFORMS, vol. 35(1), pages 138-157, January.
    18. Eggers, Fabian & Risselada, Hans & Niemand, Thomas & Robledo, Sebastian, 2022. "Referral campaigns for software startups: The impact of network characteristics on product adoption," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 309-324.
    19. Sinan Aral & Dylan Walker, 2011. "Creating Social Contagion Through Viral Product Design: A Randomized Trial of Peer Influence in Networks," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(9), pages 1623-1639, February.
    20. Chen, Zhen-Yu & Fan, Zhi-Ping & Sun, Minghe, 2019. "Individual-level social influence identification in social media: A learning-simulation coordinated method," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 273(3), pages 1005-1015.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:82:y:2018:i:c:p:160-170. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.