Are All Opinion Leaders Opinion Givers? Are All Opinion Givers Opinion Leaders?: A Clarification of Constructs Based on Empirical Data.

Opinion leaders are a prime target group for any company. Studies on consumer behaviour support the importance of personal sources of information and influence. Still, careful attention should be given to methods of identifying these individuals. We assess existing methods to identify opinion leaders. In particular, we address the question whether the most prominent construct, the King/Summers scale, is able to reliably and validly identify those individuals that perform as opinion givers. On the basis of a survey of 10Â’100 respondents on money matters, we test this concept of opinion leadership. We show that without the benefit of ego-centred network analysis any study runs the risk of misjudging the importance of individuals identified as opinion leaders. We suggest a combination of network size and opinion leadership, arriving at a role differentiation of four groups. With this, we draft a communication model for active opinion leaders, communicators, silent experts and inactives. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]