Socialization on Sustainable Networks: The Case of eBay Green's Facebook

초록

Given that novel merchandising informatics is seen as a better approach to studying eco-friendly markets, this study aimed to explore consumer socialization of sustainable networks based on the theory of consumer socialization. By employing social network analysis using the NodeXL program, we examined the social class hierarchy, investigated the structure of social agent-learner relationships, and explored the social learning properties of the eBay Green Team Facebook network. The results indicated that the network has been structured as a 'tight-crowd network' through 76,482 interactions among 1612 actors from 19 clusters. Specifically, the centrality measure revealed the top influentials and their interactions with other eBay Green participants. The semantic analysis discerned the salient words, which implies that consumers gain utility from this network. We concluded that sustainable networks in social media can provide an account of the socialization of consumer attitudes and the role of top influentials in sustaining the relational network.

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