Stewart Adam, Senior Lecturer, School of Marketing, RMIT University, Level 14, 239 Bourke Street, Melbourne, 3000. Email: stewart.adam@rmit.edu.au
Dr Kenneth R Deans, Senior Lecturer, Department of Marketing, University of Otago, P.O. Box 56, Dunedin, New Zealand. Email: kdeans@commerce.otago.ac.nz
New media, knowledge media, marketing channels, attention age, learning organisations, world wide web, experience marketing, event marketing, e-commerce,e-business, electronic commerce, electronic business, electronic marketing.
This paper describes a work-in-progress study which aims to compare current commercial use of the Internet across standard industrial classifications (SIC) and contrast intent and outcomes by organisations. While the initial phase involves researching Australian and New Zealand organisations, the intention is to extend the study with collaborators in the Americas, Asia and Europe. The research follows on from studies such as Ho (HREF 1) and a more recent study conducted in New Zealand during 1997 (Deans and McKinney, 1997) [HREF 2]. The study acknowledges that the Internet occupies a unique role in commerce and government in that it may be seen as knowledge media (Eisenstadt, 1995) [HREF 3], new media and marketing channel (Adam, 1998; Adam and Westberg, 1998; Hoffman and Novak, 1996). It is hypothesised that this broader interpretation impacts on return on investment calculations thereby necessitating a study of company intentions, strategies and expenditure concerning Internet usage. The paper presents a background to the current research which saw fieldwork commence in Australia and New Zealand in February 1999; results of a longitudinal study in New Zealand as an antecedent to the present study; as well as a discussion of a pretesting of the online survey instrument used for the WebQUAL Audit in Australia and New Zealand. Conclusions are drawn and plans for extending the study globally are discussed.
[ Full Paper ] [ Presentation ] [ Proceedings ] [ AusWeb99 Home Page ]