Social influence of hubs in information cascade processes

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how hubs’ social influence on social network decisions can cause the behavior of information cascades in a market. Design/methodology/approach The authors establish understanding of the fundamental mechanism of information cascades through a computational simulation approach. Findings Eigenvector centrality, betweenness centrality, and PageRank are statistically correlated with the occurrence of information cascades among agents; the hubs’ incorrect decisions in the early diffusion stage can significantly cause misled shift cascades; and the bridge role of hubs is more influential than their pivotal position role in the process of misled shift cascades. Originality/value This implication can be extendable in the field of marketing, sequential voting, and technology, or innovation adoption.