Investigation of the Effect of Buyers’ Relationships With Each Other on Their Opinions on the Benefits of Smartphones by Ucinet Social Network Analysis

Abstract

This study aims to test the effect of buyers' relationships with each other according to demographic characteristics (gender, age, marital status, and monthly income) on their views on the benefits of smartphones. It also investigates which benefit the buyers' relations with each other are grouped around. Data were collected by online survey method from 239 buyers who had purchased smartphones before. The obtained data were analyzed by running social network analysis on UCINET 6.0 program. The results of the analysis show that the relations of smartphone buyers with each other are mostly grouped in terms of multiple benefits. The results of the regression analysis show that buyers' relationships with each other by age, marital status, and monthly income, not by gender, have a significant effect on their opinions on both the functional benefits and multiple benefits of smartphones. In addition, the relationship of buyers to each other only by age, not by gender, marital status and monthly income, has a significant effect on their opinions on the experiential benefits of smartphones. However, buyers' relationships with each other by all demographic characteristics do not have a significant effect on their opinions on the symbolic benefit of smartphones. The results of the study were discussed.