BACKGROUND Opinion leaders represent one way to disseminate new knowledge and influence the practice behaviors of physicians. This study explored the stability of opinion leaders over time, whether opinion leaders were polymorphic (i.e., influencing multiple practice areas) or monomorphic (i.e., influencing one practice area), and reach of opinion leaders in their local network. METHODS We su...

BACKGROUND There is only limited empirical evidence about the effectiveness of opinion leaders as health care change agents. AIM To test the feasibility of identifying, and the characteristics of, opinion leaders using a sociometric instrument and a self-designating instrument in different professional groups within the UK National Health Service. DESIGN Postal questionnaire survey. SETTI...

Opinion leaders on the internet play an important role in promoting the formation of online public opinion, which can influence the direction of public opinion. In this paper, we use social network analysis and content analysis to recognize the opinion leaders of online communities. First of all, we propose “Eight Degree” attribute indexes based on the characteristics of opinion leaders. Then, ...

Word of mouth (WOM) affects the buying behavior of information receivers stronger than advertisements. Opinion leaders further affect others in a specific domain through their new information, ideas and opinions. Identification of opinion leaders has become one of the most important tasks in the field of WOM mining. Existing work to find opinion leaders is based mainly on quantitative approache...

HYPOTHESIS "Opinion leaders" can be identified by surgeons from among their peers, and opinion leaders have a role in promoting best surgical practice. DESIGN Postal survey. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS Four hundred eighteen (77% response fraction) randomly selected fellows of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Number of opinion leaders identified locally, state...

Virtual communities are the uppermost communication spaces and channels for online word-of-mouth. And opinion leaders are the most important group for enterprises’ word-of-mouth communication. As enterprises are engaged in online word-of-mouth marketing activities, the key is to find out the opinion leaders in virtual communities. In this paper, after affirming the effects of opinion leaders an...