Stewart Adam, Senior Lecturer, School of Marketing, RMIT University, Level 14, 239 Bourke Street, Melbourne, 3000. Email: stewart.adam@rmit.edu.au
Kenneth R Deans, Senior Lecturer, Department of Marketing, University of Otago, P.O. Box 56, Dunedin, New Zealand. Email: kdeans@commerce.otago.ac.nz
Ambush marketing, event marketing, e-commerce, e-business, electronic commerce, electronic business, experiences in marketing, electronic marketing, integrated marketing communication, knowledge media, marketing channels, new media, permission marketing, online business, online marketing, value transformation, World Wide Web, WebQUAL Audit.
During 1999 and continuing into 2000 a multi-phase study of online business, the WebQUAL Audit, was undertaken in Australia and New Zealand. This research is in the process of extension into selected countries with local co-researchers to enable inter-country comparisons on business and government use of the World Wide Web. The study examines organisational use of the Internet across standard industrial classifications (ANZSIC) both in terms of strategic intent and satisfaction in meeting stated organisational objectives (HREF 1). The study arises from earlier research and seeks to confirm or refute a number of propositions, four of which are detailed in this paper. The study acknowledges that online businesses fall along a spectrum between 'pure dot.com' at one extremity and 'pure bricks and mortar migrating to dot.coms', while at the other extremity lie offline 'pure bricks and mortar businesses'. The first proposition is that the Internet (Net) occupies multiple roles, both internally and externally, in commerce and government and that business (the focus of this paper) has adopted the Net at varying rates according to industrial sector since 1994 depending on size of business. Secondly, it is hypothesised that there are identifiable stages through which online businesses progress over time. Thirdly, it is further hypothesised that the stage reached in progression is related to the expected rate of return from investment in online business. A fourth hypothesis is that 'interactivity' is judged a key success factor in Website performance by online businesses. The paper brings together results from two of the three phases of the WebQUAL audit (analysis of results from the probabilistic study in Australia and New Zealand; content analysis of respondent Websites; and personal interviews) in verifying or refuting the propositions detailed.
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