初次购买和升级购买中的社会传染

Social Contagion in Trial and Upgrade Purchase

随着社会化媒体的发展和传统广告的式微,学者和企业越来越重视用户之间的相互影响,即社会传染效应。已有关于社会传染的研究多关注产品的初次购买,很少有学者探讨社会传染在消费者升级购买阶段是否依然能够发生作用、哪些升级购买者的影响力更大、哪些未升级购买者更容易受到其他升级购买者的影响。在总结已有研究的基础上,详细阐述社会传染源的信息性影响和规范性影响两条影响路径在升级阶段的作用,即与初次购买阶段相比,在升级购买阶段信息性影响减弱,而规范性影响增强。结合上述论断和已有研究中社会传染的购买者和未购买者的作用,首先分析社会传染是否在升级购买阶段发挥作用,并探讨哪些购买者在升级购买阶段能够发挥更大的影响力,哪些未购买者更容易受到影响;然后,与中国某大型虚拟世界运营公司合作进行田野实验,以虚拟产品的初次购买和升级购买为样本,探讨社会传染的作用;最后,应用控制产品异质性的多状态转移风险模型建构社会传染在初次购买和升级购买的作用,并验证前文的分析。研究结果表明,(1)社会传染在升级过程中依然有效;(2)在不同阶段,购买者的影响力不同:初次购买阶段,与未购买者关系强度高的购买者拥有更强的影响力;升级购买阶段,与未升级购买者同质性更高的升级购买者影响力更大;(3)未购买者的易感性也不同:初次购买阶段,自身中心度低的未购买者更容易受到影响;升级购买阶段,中间社会地位的未升级购买者则更有可能成为被影响者。详细阐述社会传染在升级购买中的作用,比较关键消费者的不同,强调社会传染在升级购买中的作用,同时也为企业在初次购买和产品升级过程中更好地定位消费者、促进消费者购买提供指导意义。

With social media booming and decline of traditional marketing tools, many scholars and managers have come to realize the importance of social contagion and shift their attention to the impact of social contagion on consumers＇ purchase. Most of prior studies investigate the impact of social contagion on consumers＇ trial purchase, and few of them pay attention to social contagion on consumers＇ upgrade purchase and illustrate what kind of upgraders can exert more influences to other potential upgraders, and what kind of potential upgraders are more susceptible to others＇ upgrade decision. To answer the questions, this paper probes the different impact of social contagion in consumers＇ trial and upgrade purchase. By reviewing theory of social contagion and prior works in trial purchase stage, the authors elaborate the impact of social contagion＇s two inner mechanisms： informative and normative influence, which informative influence would decay and normative influence would elevate in upgrade stage comparing with trial purchase stage. Based on the inference and prior studies about the impact of social contagion on trial stage, this paper firstly analyzes and compares social contagion in upgrade purchase stage, and probes what kind of upgraders exert more influence and potential upgraders are more susceptible to social contagion in upgrade stage. Then, the authors cooperate with a virtual world operator firm to execute a field experiment and use consumers＇ purchase of virtual goods as our samples. Then, we model the impact of social contagion in consumers＇ trial and upgrade purchase stage and verify our analysis with multiple events hazard model, which incorporates product heterogeneity by different cluster setting. The results show that ： firstly, social contagion still works in upgrade stage. Secondly, influence of purchasers varies across different stages. Adopters who have more contacts with potential purchasers exert stronger influence in trial purchase stage, while in upgrade purchase stage, upgraders who own higher homophily with non-upgraders produce higher impact. Thirdly, susceptibility of potential purchasers is various across different stages, too. In trial purchase stage, non-purchasers with low centrality are more susceptible and those with middle-class status are easiest to be influenced in upgrade purchase stage. The findings provide great theoretical and practical implications for scholars and managers. From theoretical side, the authors not only illustrate the impact of social contagion in upgrade purchase stage, but also compare distinction of purchasers and potential purchasers in trial and upgrade purchase; for managerial implication, this paper states the importance of social contagion both in trial and upgrade purchase and provides managers a better way to position users and promote upgrade purchase in consumers＇ trial and upgrade purchase.