The Impacts of Opinion Leaders towards Purchase Decision Engineering under Different Types of Product Involvement

This study aims to measure the influence of opinion leaders towards the purchase decisions of the opinion seekers by examining interpersonal forces (tie strength and homophily) between the opinion leaders and opinion seekers and personal forces (opinion leader's expertise and opinion seeker's expertise), culture (collectivism-individualism and power distance), and product-category involvement.A cross-sectional survey employing collectivist - high power distance samples (Thais) and individualist - low power distance samples (Americans) will be conducted in Thailand across 2 product-category involvement.Previous findings have found that the influence of opinion leaders towards purchase decision of opinion seekers will not have equal weighting on the purchase decision due to interpersonal forces between the opinion leaders and the opinion seekers and personal forces of the opinion leaders and opinion seekers. This study proposes that varied level of influence on purchase decisions may also be due to cultural background. In addition, different types of product-category involvement may also result in different level of influence on purchase decisions. Managers and marketing practitioners alike may find that different types of product-category involvement as well as different cultural background may require different marketing. Hence they can utilise on this interpersonal and personal influences information to create most suitable and effective marketing.