Social influence is a key factor in human decision making to explain how beliefs spread over time and how this sustain the evolution of organizational forms. The issue is to examine how the structure of social ties influences individual choices and it will be investigated by exploring the link between individual decisions and network features. More specifically, we study an intra-organizational network of co-presences and other social ties based on previous acquaintances and shared activities in order to control for the effect of social influence on the decision to participate or to leave the network. We analyze a network of health club members over a period from December 2004 to July 2008 by means of an innovative methodology previously used in the field of social biology and explore associations among members on the basis of previous, contingent and spontaneous relationships. We find that influentials are highly stable in the network of customers and the level of commitment of neighbors in the network significantly impact on a club member decision to participate and to renew the contract. Our results contributes to the nascent field of behavioral industrial organization by showing that customer overconfidence is socially mediated. Moreover we shed new light on commitment decisions in networks that can be exploited by companies in the service sector through innovative social customer relationship management tools. Finally, we devise a new methodological approach to study real-time network evolution that can be further applied to investigate reality mined network data.
Socializing at the Gym: Contagious Commitment and Network Dynamics / Riccaboni M.; Romiti A.; Giudicati G.. - ELETTRONICO. - SunBelt XXX:(2010), pp. 563-563. (Intervento presentato al convegno International Sunbelt Social Network Conference tenutosi a Riva del Garda nel 29 giugno-4 luglio).
Socializing at the Gym: Contagious Commitment and Network Dynamics
ROMITI, ANNA;
2010
Abstract
Social influence is a key factor in human decision making to explain how beliefs spread over time and how this sustain the evolution of organizational forms. The issue is to examine how the structure of social ties influences individual choices and it will be investigated by exploring the link between individual decisions and network features. More specifically, we study an intra-organizational network of co-presences and other social ties based on previous acquaintances and shared activities in order to control for the effect of social influence on the decision to participate or to leave the network. We analyze a network of health club members over a period from December 2004 to July 2008 by means of an innovative methodology previously used in the field of social biology and explore associations among members on the basis of previous, contingent and spontaneous relationships. We find that influentials are highly stable in the network of customers and the level of commitment of neighbors in the network significantly impact on a club member decision to participate and to renew the contract. Our results contributes to the nascent field of behavioral industrial organization by showing that customer overconfidence is socially mediated. Moreover we shed new light on commitment decisions in networks that can be exploited by companies in the service sector through innovative social customer relationship management tools. Finally, we devise a new methodological approach to study real-time network evolution that can be further applied to investigate reality mined network data.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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