Measuring Web site quality improvements: a case study of the forum on strategic management knowledge exchange
| Published date | 01 July 2003 |
| Pages | 297-309 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/02635570310477352 |
| Date | 01 July 2003 |
| Author | Stuart J. Barnes,Richard Vidgen |
| Subject Matter | Economics,Information & knowledge management,Management science & operations |
Measuring Web site quality improvements: a case
study of the forum on strategic management
knowledge exchange
Stuart J. Barnes
School of Information Management, Victoria University of Wellington,
Wellington, New Zealand
Richard Vidgen
School of Management, University of Bath, Bath, UK
1. Introduction
Aside from the growth of electronic
commerce (Cheung, 1998; McManis et al.,
2001), the implications of the Web are being
felt in many other areas of organization. One
such area is electronic government
(e-government). Recently, government
services have begun to be provided via the
Web in countries such as the USA, UK,
Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Singapore and
Portugal. In addition, cross-national
organizations such as the Organisation for
Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD), World Trade Organisation (WTO),
and United Nations have started to develop
Web offerings aimed at recipients in many
and varied countries. Digital government has
huge potential benefits. Government
transcends all sectors of society, and not only
provides the legal, political, and economic
infrastructure to support other sectors, but
also exerts considerable influence on the
social factors that add to their development
(Elmagarmid and McIver, 2001).
E-government thus has the potential to
transform profoundly people's perceptions of
civil and political interactions with their
governments. Even though we may see
further convergence of e-commerce and
e-government services (Kubicek and Hagen,
2001), unlike e-commerce, e-government
services must ± in most societies ± be
accessible to all. Through the Web,
expectations of the service levels that
e-government sites must provide have been
raised considerably (Cook, 2000).
This research utilizes the WebQual method
to assess the quality of a specific
cross-national Web site provided via the
OECD ± before and after a process of
redesign. The Web site is that of the Forum
on Strategic Management Knowledge
Exchange (FSMKE) ± a site relating to
international tax policy and administration.
WebQual was developed originally as an
instrument for assessing user perceptions of
the quality of e-commerce Web sites. The
instrument has been under development
since the early part of 1998 and has evolved
via a process of iterative refinement in
different e-commerce and e-government
domains (e.g. see Barnes and Vidgen, 2001a,
b; 2002). Most recently, the instrument has
been used in areas of UK and New Zealand
government. The method turns qualitative
customer assessments into quantitative
metrics that are useful for management
decision-making. Typically, the tool allows
comparisons to be made for the same
organization over time or between
organizations in an industry.
While e-government can provide
communication, transaction and integration
of administrative services, most countries
are not making extensive use of the Web.
According to the Cyberspace Policy Research
Group (CyPRG) the 1999 global average score
for information transparency is less than 50
per cent and for interactivity it is less than 25
per cent (La Porte et al., 2001). Although there
appears to be less progress with
transaction-based services, a Gartner
Research (2001) survey of European countries
showed that the demand by citizens for
information massively outweighs the
demand for interactivity. The offerings
examined in this research are quite basic,
first or entry level services, provided largely
for one-way communication (The Economist,
2000).
The structure of the paper is as follows. In
the next section we describe the background
to the research and the methodology used.
Section three reports the data analysis and
preliminary findings, which are then
discussed and interpreted in section four.
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[ 297 ]
Industrial Management &
Data Systems
103/5 [2003] 297-309
#MCB UP Limited
[ISSN 0263-5577]
[DOI 10.1108/02635570310477352]
Keywords
Web sites, Quality, Benchmarking,
Assessment, Case studies,
Government
Abstract
As organizations have begun
increasingly to communicate and
interact with consumers via the
Web, so the appropriate design of
offerings has become a central
issue. Attracting and retaining
consumers requires acute
understanding of the requirements
of users and appropriate tailoring
of solutions. Recently, the
development of Web offerings has
moved beyond the commercial
domain to government, both
national and international. This
paper examines the results of a
quality survey of a Web site
provided by the OECD. The site is
examined before and after a major
redesign process. The instrument,
WebQual, draws on previous work
in Web site usability, information
quality, and service interaction
quality to provide a rounded
framework for assessing
e-commerce and e-government
offerings. The metrics and findings
demonstrate not only the
strengths and weaknesses of the
sites, but also the different
impressions of users in member
countries. These findings have
implications for e-government Web
site offerings.
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