Research On Consumer Decision-making Network And Application

The decision-making behavior of consumers shows more and more obvious correlation, due to rapid changing in consumer environment. So the Consumer’s decision-making increasingly "embedded" into the complex system, which is constituted by various correlative relationships, and it emerges in various types of complex market phenomena. Therefore, it is very important to interpret the increasingly complex consumer behavior and complex market phenomena, from the study of correlation and embedded of the consumers’decision-making.Thus, this paper presents to research the "correlative" and "embedded" of consumers’decision-making from the perspective of "relationship", and presents the consumer decision-making relationship and the consumer’s decision-making network to describe it. The consumer decision-making relationship is The Foundation of the "correlative" and "embedded" of consumers’decision-making. At the micro level, the consumer decision-making relationship affect the individual consumer’s decision-making as attributes, and making it to appear "correlative"; at the macro, the consumer is "embedded" into the system, which is composed of large number of Complicated consumer decision-making relationships. Consumers make correlative decision in the system and emerge in various types of complex market phenomena. Therefore, only to clarify the nature of the consumer decision-making relationship, we can study the "correlative" of consumers’decision making thoroughly. Only to descript the associated system clearly, we can analyze the "embedded" of consumers’decision makingThe consumer’s decision-making network is the topology and description of the complex system which the consumers embedded in. firstly it is an overall concept to describe the collection of consumer decision-making relationships, and it reflects the overall impact of the system on consumer’s decision-making, which is constituted by the crisscrossing relationships. Secondly, it is a structured analysis tool used to study the effects of different network structures on consumer’s decision-making. Application of the consumer’s decision-making network to study consumer’s decision-making problems, not only can analyze the "correlative" of consumer’s decision-making in micro-level, but also can analyze the dynamic link between the individual consumer’s decision-making and the emerging complex market phenomena in macro-level. In turn, it also can correlate the individual consumer and the study of consumer decision-making problems with macro-level and the complex market phenomena research effectively. In practice, the research on consumer decision-making network, On the one hand, can help companies to understand how consumers relate to each other when they make decisions to buy different products, and How new product diffuse in this network. Then it can guide enterprises to make more effective marketing decisions based on consumer network characteristics. On the other hand, it can also provide advice to government departments to regulate and develop a variety of consumer policy.Research on the current relevant study, we can find there are several network research questions on these studies, which lacking of the analysis on the basis of consumer decision-making network formation, namely the consumer decision-making relationship,lacking of the research of the particularity of consumer decision-making structure, ignoring the situation of consumer decision-making network, and are inadequate on the analysis of the dynamic evolution of the consumer’s decision-making and other aspects of network analysis. These issues require us to study and definition consumer decision-making relationship and consumer decision-making networks more intensive, thus providing a more solid theoretical basis and analysis methods for the research on the consumer decision-making network and it application.Therefore, under the guidelines, this article mainly researches the following key questions:First, we define the content and nature of the consumer decision-making relationship clearly. It is the foundation of the study on consumer decision-making network. Only clearly define consumer decision-making relationship, which can provide a basis for further research.Second, we analysis and study of consumer decision-making networks, including basic concepts, characteristics and classification, etc. the research on consumer decision network is mainly in two fields, the consumer decision-making individual networks and the consumer decision-making whole networks.:the individual network research on the specific consumer-centric network, rather than the relationship between other consumers outside the specific consumers. The whole network research on the network, which is constitute by all relationship between consumers in a relatively closed set.Third, we define the concept and the nature of the consumer decision-making individual network clearly. We theoretically define the meaning and characteristics of the consumer decision-making individual network, and propose the structure indicators to describe it, and then we use an example to descript and illustrate it.Fourth, we define the concept and the nature of the consumer decision-making whole network, and proposed structure indicators to describe it. Further, we need to study and design new algorithm of the consumer decision-making network, which is able to distinguish with small-world network design and scale-free network algorithm, and can reflect the characteristics of the consumers’decision-making. With this algorithm, we can design a more realistic model of consumer decision-making network.Fifth, the application of consumer decision research network. Based on the content of Consumer decision-making network and its construction algorithm, we simulation two scenarios, the constant structure network and the dynamic structure network, in which we study how the enterprises select a valid Sampling Targets for New Product, based on the consumer decision-making network, or the consumer decision-making relationship, to ensure the success of sampling strategy.Combining these analyzes content, this paper draw the following conclusions:First, we define the consumer decision-making relationship theoretically and description it with empirical examples. The consumer decision relationship is formed between the consumer and other people, which can influence the consumer’s decision-making, and to achieve a satisfactory purpose of decision-making. And further we theoretically analyze the content and nature of consumer decision-making relationship. We also statistical analyze the types and nature of the consumer decision-making relationship and their effects on decision making, through an empirical example of specific consumer groups.Second, we study the consumer decision-making network basically, including the concept, characteristics and classification of consumer decision-making networks, First, we define the concept of consumer decision-making network, which is used to describe and mapping the relationship between the consumer decision-making process and different network structures they performance, namely to describe "sum" of the consumer decision-making relationship with given moment and particular product. Further we analysis its basic characteristics:1) embeddedness;2) the value of the network;3) the effect of the structure;4) dynamic complexity; And put forward to classify it from two aspects of the subject and the object of decision-making. In accordance with the scope of the subject studied, we can divide the consumer decision-making network into consumer decision-making individual network and consumer decision-making whole network. Further, based on this classification, the follow-up study will focus on these two networks.Third, this paper theoretically analyzes the content and features of consumer decision-making individual network, and design indices system to reflect the network characteristics, and use an empirical example to illustrate it. The consumer decision-making individual network describes a relatively stable system of decision-making relationship, which is consumer-centric and determined by specific consumer object. It has the same characteristics with consumer decision-making network. Then we proposed the structure indicators to describe it:average network size, relationship structure, similarity, relationship intimacy, decision-making convergence, network evolution characteristics and the degree distribution. Based on this, we make an empirical study on a specific consumer decision-making individual network, and analysis statistical it from the seven categories indicators, through the design of the questionnaire.Fourth, this paper research on the content and features of consumer decision-making whole network theoretically. The consumer decision-making whole network is a set of consumers and their decision-making relationships in a relatively closed set, which is determined by specific consumer objects. It is not only a tool to describe the set of consumer decision-making relationships, but also a tool to analyze to research the effects of the structure of the consumer decision-making network on the consumer’s decision-making.Based on this we design a particular class of algorithm to construct consumer decision-making whole network, which reflect the special nature of the consumer decision-making. This algorithm is designed to consider the growth and the preferential attachment mechanism of consumer decision-making whole network, but also to consider the particularity of it, such as the local world properties, the heterogeneity of the new node and the dynamic evolution of the network. Further, combined the characteristics of consumer decision-making whole network, we propose a series of structure indices to describe it. On this basis, we simulate four networks, according to the algorithm of consumer decision-making whole network, and describe and study the structure and characteristics of them.Fifth, the application of consumer decision research network. Based on the construction algorithm of consumer decision-making network, we simulation two network, the constant structure network and the dynamic structure network with the consumer’s behavior. And we study in the two networks how the enterprises select a valid Sampling Targets for New Product to ensure the success of sampling strategy.Accordingly, the innovation of this paper can be summarized as the following three aspects:First, we research on the "correlative" and "embedded" of consumers’ decision-making from the perspective of "relationship", and presents the consumer decision-making relationship to describe the "correlative" and The consumer’s decision-making network to topology and describe of the complex economic system which the consumers "embedded" in. So we provide a basic conception system and analytical methods to study the two properties of consumer decision-making and their effectiveness.Second, we research on the consumer decision-making relationship and the consumer decision-making network systematically, and propose the structure indicators to describe the consumer decision-making network, and design new algorithm of the consumer decision-making network, which is able to distinguish with classic network algorithm, and can reflect the characteristics of the consumers’ decision-making. Through simulation, we prove that the algorithm can reflect the reality of the basic characteristics of consumer decision-making networks to some extent.Third, based on the two scenarios, the constant structure network and the dynamic structure network, we study how the enterprises select valid sampling targets for new product to ensure the success of sampling strategy. Here, the dynamic study of consumer decision-making networks is to extend and complement of earlier studies, the rules of the evolution of the consumer decision-making network is based on its decision-making behavior and reflecting the cooperative evolution of behavior and structure.