1 Introduction
2 Theoretical background
2.1 Indicators of opinion leadership
2.2 The social network environment
2.3 Interplay between the indicators of opinion leadership and the social environment
2.4 Control variables
3 Data
3.1 Survey
Construct | Items | Adaptations from… |
---|---|---|
Opinion leadership—persuasiveness | 1. When they choose a mobile phone, other people turn to me for advice (pers1) 2. I often persuade others to buy the mobile phones that I like (pers2) | Flynn et al. 1994
Kratzer and Lettl 2009
|
Opinion leadership—innovativeness | 3. In general, I am the first in my circle of friends to buy a new mobile phone when it appears (innov1) 4. If I heard that a new mobile phone was available, I would be interested enough to buy it (innov2) 5. I like to buy a new mobile phone before other people do (innov3) | Goldsmith and Hofacker 1991
Steenkamp and Gielens 2003
|
Opinion leadership—perceived knowledge | 6. I belong to the 25 % of the population that knows the most about mobile products/services (perck1) 7. I consider myself to be an educated consumer regarding mobile telephony (perck2) | Pritchard et al. 1999
Heitmann et al. 2007
Flynn and Goldsmith 1999
|
Commitment | 8. I feel XYZ knows what I want (commit1) 9. I feel a strong sense of belonging to XYZ (commit2) 10. I feel a strong sense of attachment to XYZ (commit3) | Verhoef 2003
|
Involvement | 11. Generally, I am someone who finds it important what mobile products/services he or she buys (involv1) 12. Generally, I am someone who is interested in the kind of mobile products/services he or she buys (involv2) | De Wulf et al. 2001
|
(1) | (2) | (3) | (4) | (5) | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Time of adoption (1) | 1.000 | ||||
Degree centrality (2) | −0.277*** | 1.000 | |||
Commitment (3) | −0.024 | 0.057* | 1.000 | ||
Involvement (4) | −0.063** | 0.005 | −0.003 | 1.000 | |
SROL (5) | −0.120*** | 0.055* | 0.002 | −0.005 | 1.000 |
(1) | (2) | (3) | (4) | (5) | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
AVG_direct marketing (1) | 1.000 | ||||
Service usage (2) | −0.007 | 1.000 | |||
Relationship length (3) | 0.102*** | −0.021 | 1.000 | ||
Tie strength (4) | −0.028* | 0.084*** | −0.028* | 1.000 | |
Homophily (5) | −0.027* | −0.026* | −0.014 | 0.089*** | 1.000 |
4 Method
5 Results
Main model | Copula model | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Estimate | s.e. |
p
| Estimate | s.e. |
p
| |
Intercept | −9.895 | 0.339 | <0.001 | −9.906 | 0.340 | <0.001 |
Initiator characteristics | ||||||
Time of adoption (initiator) | 0.015 | 0.006 | 0.006 | 0.015 | 0.006 | 0.006 |
Involvement | 0.043 | 0.023 | 0.066 | 0.094 | 0.140 | 0.504 |
Involvementstar | −0.053 | 0.141 | 0.704 | |||
Commitment | 0.054 | 0.021 | 0.010 | 0.279 | 0.329 | 0.397 |
Commitmentstar | −0.221 | 0.328 | 0.500 | |||
Follower characteristics | ||||||
Gender (1 = male) | −0.107 | 0.043 | 0.013 | −0.106 | 0.043 | 0.013 |
Relationship length | 0.527 | 0.026 | <0.001 | 0.528 | 0.026 | <0.001 |
Service usage | 0.448 | 0.034 | <0.001 | 0.448 | 0.034 | <0.001 |
Direct marketing | 0.532 | 0.113 | <0.001 | 0.533 | 0.113 | <0.001 |
AVG_direct_marketing | 0.015 | 0.005 | 0.007 | 0.015 | 0.005 | 0.007 |
Indicators of opinion leadership | ||||||
Self-reported opinion leadership (SROL) | 0.029 | 0.023 | 0.197 | −0.066 | 0.163 | 0.683 |
SROLstar | 0.095 | 0.164 | 0.562 | |||
Degree centrality | 0.019 | 0.007 | 0.010 | 0.020 | 0.008 | 0.008 |
Network characteristics | ||||||
Tie strength | 0.036 | 0.018 | 0.039 | 0.036 | 0.018 | 0.041 |
Homophily | 0.295 | 0.082 | <0.001 | 0.297 | 0.083 | 0.000 |
Interactions | ||||||
Tie strength × OL | 0.028 | 0.015 | 0.064 | 0.034 | 0.062 | 0.578 |
Tie strength × OLstar | −0.010 | 0.091 | 0.912 | |||
Tie strength × degree centrality | 0.000 | 0.004 | 0.961 | 0.000 | 0.004 | 0.956 |
σν
| 0.192 | 0.379 | 0.192 | 0.387 | ||
Loglikelihood (LL) | −9718.657 | −9717.126 |