NETWORK CENTRALITY AND OPINION LEADERSHIP A SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS

This research examines the role of centrality in two social networks. The authors find a positive relationship between network centrality and opinion leadership. The findings suggest that individuals high in centrality can leverage their network position to potentially become an influential member in their social group. Given the relative lack of research in the role of social networks in consumer behaviour, the authors encourage further exploration into the benefits of occupying a favourable network position. Katz and Lazarsfeld’s (1955) model of a two-step flow of communication still stands as one of the major groundwork models for much marketing research (e.g. Burt, 1999; Feick and Price, 1987; Flynn, Goldsmith, and Eastman, 1996; King and Summers, 1970). The model dictates that information gets passed on from marketers to market influencers (e.g. opinion leaders), which subsequently gets passed on to other consumers within the influencer’s network. The model functions based on two rudimentary assumptions, which is that the focal actor has the ability to diffuse information and that there is a network of people connected to the focal actor that the actor can diffuse the information to. As such, research in this field has spawned two divergent streams of research, with one stream focusing on the ability and characteristics of market influencers to pass on the information (e.g. Bloch and Richins, 1983; Rogers, 1995), and the other stream focusing on how networks and relationships affect information exchange and word-of-mouth behaviors (e.g. Brown and Reingen, 1987; Reingen and Kernan, 1986