Assessing the usefulness of an opinion leadership scale to the diffusion of new accounting services

The Federal Trade Commission, in 1990, forced the accounting profession to cease and desist from declaring the receipt of commissions by CPAs as unethical. As a result, CPAs can now accept commissions for brokering products/services of 3rd party vendors to their nonaudit clients. The types of products/services which could feasibly be brokered are virtually limitless. To successfully diffuse the new accounting products/services, CPAs need marketing tools to help them identify those persons best suited for getting the word out. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the credibility of an existing instrument, Childers modified version of the King-Summers scale, which purports to measure an individual's level of opinion leadership. Opinion leadership is a factor deemed essential by marketers to those who are targeted to proliferate the message of innovative products/services. Childer's scale was found to be a potentially useful device for assisting accounting marketers interested in generating commissions.