Identification of Opinion Leaders across Cultures: An Assessment for Use in the Diffusion of Innovations and Ideas

Abstract

The objectives of this paper were: 1) to determine if there exists an underlying dimensionality of opinion leadership across different cultural groups, and 2) to determine if this underlying structure can be used to identify opinion leaders for the purpose of targeting communications by multinational businesses to assist them in the diffusion of innovations and ideas. Opinion leaders were rated by students representing five different cultural backgrounds. Results tended to show that there is a set of common dimensions by which opinion leaders are evaluated, but that different cultures assign different weights to the dimensions.