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Leading users and opinion leaders in social networks of university students

  • Yi Si Chen*
  • , Guo Xin Li
  • *Corresponding author for this work
  • School of Management, Harbin Institute of Technology

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

Prior research has shown that leading users and opinion leaders may have a positive effect on innovation adoption. This raises a question: identifying the position of leading users and opinion leaders. Therefore, this study attempts to identify leading users and opinion leaders from the perspective of social networks. In the research of social networks, centrality analysis is used to measure the power of each individual by using of UCINET 6.0. We use a sample of 2 school classes consisting 66 college students, hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) is used to test the correlation. We find that eigenvector centrality can positively identify both leading users and opinion leaders. In addition, eigenvector centrality is a more powerful indicator to test centrality in networks by taking the quality of connection in consideration.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication2012 International Conference on Management Science and Engineering, ICMSE 2012 - 19th Annual Conference Proceedings
Pages89-94
Number of pages6
DOIs
StatePublished - 2012
Externally publishedYes
Event2012 19th Annual International Conference on Management Science and Engineering, ICMSE 2012 - Dallas, TX, United States
Duration: 20 Sep 201222 Sep 2012

Publication series

NameInternational Conference on Management Science and Engineering - Annual Conference Proceedings
ISSN (Print)2155-1847

Conference

Conference2012 19th Annual International Conference on Management Science and Engineering, ICMSE 2012
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityDallas, TX
Period20/09/1222/09/12

Keywords

  • centrality analysis
  • eigenvector
  • leading users
  • opinion leaders
  • social networks

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