Effect of individual and enterprise behaviors on the interplay between product-attributes information propagation and word-of-mouth communication in multiplex networks

Abstract

In the course of individual consumption decision-making, the interaction between online product-attributes information propagation and face-to-face word-of-mouth (WOM) communication is an important influencing factor, and due to the heterogeneity of individuals and the involvement of enterprise, the interaction becomes more complicated. In this paper, we establish a multi-layer network model to explore the effect of individual and enterprise behaviors on the interaction between product-attributes information propagation and WOM communication, and derive mean-field equations to describe the dynamics process on complex social networks. We use analytical and numerical solutions of these equations to examine the threshold for the product-attributes information propagation and the WOM communication (both positive WOM and negative WOM). It also finds that individual behavior promotes both product-attributes information propagation and WOM communication, but the marginal utility of such promotion is diminishing; enterprise behavior promotes the communication of positive WOM and suppresses the communication of negative WOM.