【论文信息】

Huang Q, Li X, Wang D. Social influence and the choice of product upgrades: evidence from virtual product adoption in online games[J]. Internet Research, 2024.（ABS-3星期刊）

【作者信息】

第一作者：黄清，博士，讲师，研究方向：新媒体广告策略、网络营销

【论文摘要】

Previous studies on social influence and virtual product adoption have mainly taken users’ purchase behavior as a dichotomous variable (i.e. purchasing or not). Given the prevalence of competing versions (basic vs upgraded) of a virtual product in online communities, this paper investigated the differences in the effect of social influence on users’ adoption of basic and upgraded choices of a virtual product. It also examined how the effect varies with users’ social status and user-level network density. Social influence exerts a stronger positive effect on users’ adoption of the upgraded virtual product than of the basic virtual product. Middle-status users have the greatest (least) susceptibility to social influence in adopting the upgraded (basic) virtual product than low- and high-status users. User’s network density enhances the effect of social influence on adoption of both virtual products, even more for the upgraded one.