Investigating the Effectiveness of Received Offline Word of Mouth: Role of Acquired and Ascribed Homophily

This research examines how similarities in educational and ethnic backgrounds (status homophily), between word of mouth (WOM) participants, influences the effectiveness of received offline WOM on the recipient’s behavioural intentions. The educational similarity between individuals is conceptualized as acquired homophily, whereas ethnic similarity is defined as ascribed homophily. This study employs scenario-based experiments, and the results suggest that positive and negative WOM received from homophilous sources is more effective in influencing the recipient’s purchase and WOM re-transmission intentions than recommendations received from heterophilous sources. This research expands the literature about offline WOM and the multidimensional status-homophily construct by providing insights on the differential influence of positive and negative recommendations received from WOM sources similar or dissimilar to the WOM recipients in terms of their educational and ethnic backgrounds. This is important from both the theoretical and practitioner perspective as the recent focus of scholarly research is on understanding the relationship between online homophily and e-WOM at the expense of offline WOM-homophily relationship.

Homophily and behavior diffusion

There is continuing debate over the effect of homophily, which is the tendency for individuals to socialize with similar people, on behavior diffusion. We aimed to clarify this relationship from a social network perspective, using the agent-based modeling approach. The results demonstrate that homophily promoted the diffusion of behaviors that people had a strong propensity to adopt, but had a prohibitive effect when the adoption propensity was weak. When the adoption propensity was moderate, the effect was promotive at first and then became prohibitive. Moreover, we identified 3 types of homophily—status, value, and mixed (status–value)—and found that mixed homophily was most effective for behavior diffusion, followed by value homophily and then status homophily. These findings highlight the importance of behavior classes and homophily type in the relationship between homophily and behavior diffusion, and call for a serious consideration of both factors when empirically studying the related issues.

Do Similar Brands ‘Like’ Each Other? An Investigation of Homophily Among Brands’ Social Networks on Facebook

The advent of internet and communication technologies enabled marketers of brands to have more ways to communicate with their audience; one of which is connecting with other brands. One of the most popular outlets that allows brands to connect with other brands online is Facebook. Brands on Facebook can establish an official fan page where they can interact with their fans as well as network with other brands’ official Facebook pages through “liking” them. This paper seeks to investigate the “liking” behavior among local and global brands (brand to brand) on Facebook in Saudi Arabia and whether these brands’ “liking” network is based on homophilous relationships. The results showed that both status (e.g., geography and gender), and value (e.g., family ties and religion) homophilous relationships are in play. However, value homophily was a strong factor in brands’ network in Saudi Arabia for some brands in the absence of status homophily network. Although status homophily in general played a role, geographical proximity was not a strong factor compared to previous reports on social network analysis. The data for this study were obtained from 40 brands marketed in Saudi Arabia. Using Netvizz and Gephi, network structures were mapped to explore the relationships among the brand’s’ Facebook pages.

Status and international alliance formation

Purpose Evidence suggests that “single-market” alliances are more likely to form between firms in similar socially determined status positions. However, in international alliances, firms come from different status interfaces and foreign partners may become status competitors. Hence, the preference for partners with similar socially derived status positions in their respective markets, or status homophily, is unclear in ‘international’ partner selections. This analysis aims to better understand this issue. Design/methodology/approach This research explores status homophily in international alliance formation using a database of hand-collected tombstone announcements for US initial public offering syndicates involving Japanese securities firms from 1975 through 1984. Findings Results suggest that firms are attracted to partners who occupy similar socially derived status positions in their own home markets. Additionally, high-status host-country firms may signal status differences within alliances to reduce status competition from high-status foreign partners. Originality/value This research indicates that “international” alliance research needs to consider socially derived status positions. Additionally, academics and practitioners alike can benefit from the knowledge that status signaling within alliances can be a type of competitive behavior between cooperating firms.