Research Of Opinion Leaders' Impact On Purchase Intention Under Social Commerce Context

For a long time, Word-of-Mouth (WOM) is believed as an important factor which influences decision making of consumer behaviors. With the development of Internet applications, e-WOM which has faster spread speed, wider influence scope and greater impact power than traditional WOM becoming more and more popular. As an important source and propaganda channel of e-WOM, online opinion leaders play significant roles in WOM creation and consumer decision-making day by day. In fact, researches about opinion leader initiate early from the1950s represented by the work of Katz&Lazarsfeld. Later studies found that own to possess professional knowledge, deep product involvement, frequency interaction with followers and high social-economic status, opinion leaders always have powerful persuasion on consumer decisions, which is more impactful than traditional advertisement and marketer promotions.In present, widely accepted Web2.0applications offer a perfect platform for opinion leader, and provide channels for influence propaganda as well. With the new tendency of product information searching behaviors based on web, opinion leaders become an important choice of information source for many consumers since their systematic product involvement and professional in categories knowledge.Meanwhile, social network is widely adopted by traditionally electrical business enterprises, and websites featured with social commerce emerges right then, which bring product and interaction about product together in a same system. In front of this numerous product information, a key factor for the success of social commerce website is that whether or not it can efficiently recommend products to consumers. As a critical channel for WOM dissemination, opinion leader could improve the efficiency problem in recommendation manifestly. Therefore, more and more social commerce websites begin to set up special districts for opinion leaders, or bring up their own opinion leaders in order to execute more efficient recommendations.Under social commerce background, this dissertation takes influences of opinion leader as the study object. From the aspect of consumer trust, a unified model on opinion leader influential is put forward based on investigations on individual perceive in perceived value theory and three constructs of WOM information acceptance including source of communicator, information and individual, and evaluated by empirical studies which combined qualitative and quantitative analysis together.Based on systematic literatures research and grounded theory analysis, theory model on impact of opinion leader is constructed, as well as the research hypothesizes and the definitions and measurements of the corresponding variants. After the first version of questionnaire is obtained, a pre-exploratory testing is implemented by reliability and validity tests for selection of scale subjects, and then the final questionnaire is determined. At last, confirmatory analysis is carried out, and Structural Equation Model (SEM) is applied on the cause-effect model, and the influential factors of opinion leader exert on e-WOM and its mechanism is verified as well. Through an empirical study based on487effective samples, the mainly findings are as follows:(1) The theory model performs well in explanation in the influence of opinion leader on consumer purchase intention, especially in condition of consumer classification on their demand. To consumers who have similar interests with opinion leader, explanation ability of our theory model is more powerful.(2)Purchase intention generated after consumer accepts the recommendation of opinion leader is not closely related with the fame of opinion leader. Propaganda source is not significant with recommendation of opinion leader. In fact, recommendation information receivers pay more attention on professional knowledge, product involvement and interaction of opinion leader, these features are helpful to infer the reliability of recommended information, and produce positive effect on consumer trust. Additionally, specialization and product involvement have direct impact on purchase intention as well.(3) Features of recommendation information are not significant on recommend effects, while visual cues always play positive impacts on consumer trust. Besides, recommend consistency and timeliness are not significant with consumer trust.(4) Consumer perceived value triggered by product recommended from opinion leaders has significant influence on recommend effects. The higher consumer perceived functional value and emotional value, the greater impact on consumer trust, and its purchase intention as well.(5) Trust is the critical mediator between opinion leader character, recommendation information feature, consumer perceived value, and purchase intention. Trust is firstly generated, and then purchase intention is yielded concerning products and brands mentioned in recommendations. Consumer trust is found that would be impacted by opinion leader specialization, product involvement, interaction, visual cues of recommendation, consumer functional value and emotional value, and then purchase intention of consumer is influenced.(6) Consumers usually have distinct preferences and favors, hence recommendation from a same opinion leader sometimes produce vary impacts on different consumers. Consumers are will to accept recommendations from opinion leaders who have similar product preferences and tastes. To consumers who have high homogeneity with opinion leader, features such as professional and deep product involvement of opinion leader are more emphasized.This dissertation focuses on impact factors and its mechanisms of opinion leader under social commerce background, and the achievements can enrich applications of interpersonal communication theory in online environments, and systematically understanding the role played by opinion leader. Mediating effect testing is helpful for the completeness of impact mechanism of opinion leader and enhances contents of WOM theory. Meanwhile, the findings of this dissertation are beneficial to operating social commence website as well as its marketing, and assist enterprises to understand the key roles of opinion leader plays in WOM marketing. Refer to variants which influence purchase intention significantly, enterprises can adjust their corresponding factors in product development, and theoretical foundations is also provided to these who want take advantages of opinion leader to build positive WOM in online business.