2187. Competitor Interference in Innovation Diffusion: An Agent-Based Simulation of Disinformation Campaigns
Invited abstract in session TC-7: Simulation & Analysis, stream Simulation and Quantum Computing.
Thursday, 11:45-13:15Room: U2-205
Authors (first author is the speaker)
| 1. | Frederik Tolkmitt
|
| Department of Business Administration and Economics, Bielefeld University | |
| 2. | Christian Stummer
|
| Department of Business Administration and Economics, Bielefeld University |
Abstract
When an innovation enters the market, diverse communications influence consumers’ adoption decisions. We distinguish three types of communication—the good, the bad, and the ugly—based on their sources, content, and intended effects. Good and bad communications are usually based on the actual performance of the product experienced by consumers and arise from consumers who want to communicate their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the product to their peers. In contrast, ugly communication is initiated by competitors through disinformation campaigns, which aim to lower the perceived performance of the product and increase consumer uncertainty. These campaigns can take various forms: they can target different numbers and groups of consumers (e.g., highly connected opinion leaders), they can occur for varying durations and at different times during the diffusion process, and they can impart different information with different levels of credibility. In our research, we are interested in the effect of such campaigns on consumers’ ambiguity regarding a new product’s performance (or value proposition), which can increase uncertainty and prompt consumers to postpone product adoption. To more closely analyze the impact of disinformation campaigns and possible countermeasures, we set up an agent-based simulation in which heterogeneous consumer agents are connected within a social network, receive information, update their perceptions of the product’s performance, and respond to the uncertainty created by ambiguous information.
Keywords
- Simulation
- Social Networks
- Computational Experiments
Status: accepted
Back to the list of papers