The Role of Opinion Leaders in High-Involvement Purchases:An Empirical Investigation

Opinion leaders influence the consumer’s decisions making and play significant role in disseminating information, specifically in high involvement purchases. After extensive literature survey on the opinion leaders, the theoretical framework was proposed and their hypothesis was tested. The results from the empirical study that was conducted, indicates that opinion leaders in high involvement product possess significantly higher levels of media-exposure endurance, social involvement, product knowledge, innovativeness and computer usage than non-leaders. Based on the findings, the theoretical model was developed, conclusions are drawn, key implications delineated, and avenues for future research are listed. The findings will provide useful information for marketers to promote the high-involvement products. They are also significant to real estate companies, banks, FMCG industries, who desire to understand the opinion leaders for their inputs, influences for the marketing strategies. The new finding indicates that they are younger, attained a higher education, has computer competence and they desire unique product offerings that convey status, will be useful for research purpose. This study provides a first step in investigating the opinion leadership and their impact that are ischolar_mained in high involvement product; still more research in this area is warranted.