The Role of Opinion Leaders in Influencing Consumer Behaviors with a Focus on Market Mavens: A Meta-analysis

Abstract

One of the areas in which the impacts of media messages have been tested is in the goods and services market. A number of studies have shown that the behaviors of consumers in the market are significantly influenced by market mavens, the expert consumers who have market information regarding different products, especially new products in the market. Different scholars have argued that the market mavens have had a significant influence on the behaviors of consumers through mouth to mouth communication. This research study sought to investigate how market mavens play the role of opinion leaders. In essence, the study wanted to prove the veracity of the two step flow theory of mass communication, the study utilized a meta-analysis technique in achieving its goals. The findings included the fact that opinion leaders actually played a major role in influencing the decisions of passive audiences. A number of studies have been done to determine how market mavens obtain product information from the media and pass it to other passive consumers according to the way they interpret the information. In this regard, there are not adequate meta-analyses that have been done to compare, contrast and combine the results of the different studies. This is the reason this study was done. Introduction Background of the Study According to Walsh and Elsner (2012), one of the areas in which the impacts of media messages have been tested is in the goods and services markets. A number of studies that have been done by the two scholar have shown that the behaviors of consumers in the market are significantly influenced by market mavens, the expert consumers who have market information regarding different products, especially new products in the market. Armelini and Villanueva (2010) have posited that the market mavens have had a significant influence on the behaviors of consumers through mouth to mouth communication (Walsh and Elsner, 2012).