A Comparison of Supplier Diversity Programs and Web-Based Minority Supplier Content

The growing use of the Web for business-to-business transactions means corporate Web sites could be used to communicate with diverse suppliers. This study examines the Web-based supplier diversity content on Fortune 500 public sites. These Web sites are underused for communicating with diverse suppliers; the content appears on only 12.5% of the sites. The Fortune 500 sites with supplier diversity content focus on information publishing (e.g., contact names) and prospect screening (e.g., financial requirements). The most common Web-based supplier diversity item is certification requirements. Web-based supplier diversity content, however, is nearly identical to off-line diversity program content

Benchmarking for Design Evaluation of Corporate Web Sites: A Study

No standard till date exists for corporate Web site design. This paper analyzes the features of the Web sites of some of the top performing companies from the Fortune 500 list dealing with various categories of products - consumer durables, consumer non-durables, industrial products, and services. We show the order of differences on various features that exist in site design among these categories. We also show the importance assigned to various commercial and design features by these category of companies and calculate weights assigned to these features. These weights can be used to provide a benchmark to evaluate the design of any corporate Web site. Next we analyze the content of some of the top performing Indian companies in each category and compare them with the corresponding companies from Fortune 500 group for various features. Finally, we have shown how a benchmark can be used for overall design evaluation of a Web site, taking Indian Web sites as an example

Best Practices and Web Practices: Comparing Corporate Supplier Diversity Programs with Web-based Minority Supplier Content

The growing use of the Web for business-to-business transactions means corporate Web sites could be used to communicate with diverse suppliers. This study compares the Web-based supplier diversity content on Fortune 500 public sites with the content of off-line minority supplier programs. Web sites are underused for communicating with diverse suppliers, as the content appears on only 12.5% of the sites. They emphasize information publishing because the most common Web-based supplier diversity items are contact information, such as a title and name, and third-party certification. Web-based supplier diversity content, however, is very similar to off-line diversity program content

Best Practices and Web Practices: Comparing Corporate Supplier Diversity Programs with Web-based JMinority Supplier Content

The growing use of the Web for business-to-business transactions means corporate Web sites could be used to communicate with diverse suppliers. This study compares the Web-based supplier diversity content on Fortune 500 public sites with the content of off-line minority supplier programs. Web sites are underused for communicating with diverse suppliers, as the content appears on only 12.5% of the sites. They emphasize information publishing because the most common Web-based supplier diversity items are contact information, such as a title and name, and third-party certification. Web-based supplier diversity content, however, is very similar to off-line diversity program content

Web Experience and Growth

Measuring the impact of user experience on growth and return on investment is essential in making a business case for developing or redesigning websites in a company. Thus, examining factors that can impact the return on investment of web design are of great importance to companies. In this paper, we develop a basic model to provide a scientific framework for predicting the business value of web design. We test our model via an experiment using an actual live website in a Fortune 500 company

Dissemination of Corporate Web Information in Spanish: The Case of the US Healthcare Sector

In the business context, to achieve international projection, the use of several languages is essential. The healthcare sector is not an exception, as it is a remarkable domain of specialization. So, the analysis of the keys to corporate language management—considered as the application of communicative management strategies regarding business internationalization processes—on the Web is fundamental. The main objective of this work is to identify the main features that multilingual corporate Web communication presents, specifically in the English > Spanish language combination. To this end, a sample of corporate Web sites of US companies in the healthcare sector extracted from the Fortune 500 ranking, published annually by Fortune magazine, is analyzed. A statistical analysis of frequencies and correlations has been carried out. Results show that 58.3% of the Web sites studied have undergone some kind of linguistic management processes from a multilingual perspective. In addition, Spanish language occupies a prominent role in the processes of corporate Web information dissemination. The data obtained seem to indicate that healthcare US corporations tend to make considerable efforts to disseminate their Web information in a wide range of languages. This endeavor seems to increase in the case of Spanish language. However, these efforts are still limited

Information Quality of Commercial Web Site Home Pages: An Explorative Analysis

In the search for substantive relationships in the use of emerging technology, information quality is often difficult to assess. This research explores user perceptions of presentation, navigation, and quality of Web home pages for approximately 200 selected Fortune 500 companies across 10 industries. An instrument is developed to measure these constructs and is assessed for convergent and discriminant validity as well as reliability. Company Web home pages are clustered using 24 Web site features. Interpretations of the type of Web home page within a cluster are based on their characteristics. An explorative analysis is performed between types of Web home pages and user perceptions of these sites. This study provides empirical evidence of relationships between companies at different positions in the supply chain and the information quality of their Web home pages

Assessing Web Site Usability in Retail Electronic Commerce

In the increasingly competitive environment of electronic commerce, companies are paying careful attention to Web site design and function to attract and retain both traffic and customers. One key factor that has been shown to increase both is Web site usability. This paper presents and tests a Web site usability research framework derived from prior literature. Fourteen Fortune 500 retail Web sites are examined by 261 potential customers and rated on aspects of usability. Results show that Content and Ease of Use are not currently differentiating sites with regard to usability (these attributes are expected and required just to survive in electronic commerce), but Identity, Download Delay, Trust Assurance, Made-for-the-medium, Responsiveness and Emotion can all be differentiators for a site’s usability

Divergence and convergence of the organizational values in the context of cultural dimensions: A research on the most admired companies in fortune 500 global and fortune 500 Turkey lists

Bu çalışmanın amacı, günümüz küresel ortamında faaliyet gösteren firmaların örgütsel değerlerinde ayrışma ya da benzeşme olup olmadığını ilgili tartışmalar ışığında araştırmaktır. Araştırmanın örneklemini Fortune 500 Global ve Fortune 500 Türkiye listelerindeki en beğenilen firmalar oluşturmaktadır. Ulusal Kültür farklılıkları için Hofstede (2001)’nin modelindeki dört boyut esas alınmıştır: “Güç Mesafesi”, “Belirsizlikten Kaçınma”, “Bireycilik-Toplulukçuluk”, “Erillik-Dişillik”. Örgütsel değerler için Wal, Graaf ve Lasthuizen (2008) tarafından geliştirilen örgütsel değer kategorileri esas alınmıştır. Araştırmanın verileri firmaların web sayfalarındaki kamuya açık bilgilerden elde edilmiştir. Verilerin analizinde içerik analizi uygulanmıştır. Elde edilen bulgular Hofstede’nin kültür haritasındaki boyutlar ve ülkeler açısından değerlendirilmiştir. Araştırma kapsamında yer alan 20 değerin tamamının hem Türk firmalarının hem de Amerikan firmalarının web sayfalarındaki beyanlarında yer aldığı saptanmıştır. Türk işletmelerinin örgütsel değerleri ile A.B.D şirketlerinin örgütsel değerlerinin büyük ölçüde benzeştiği ortaya çıkmıştır. Bu bulgu örgütsel değerlerde benzeşme görüşünü desteklemektedir. Ayrıca araştırma kapsamındaki tüm ülkeler için yasallık, güvenilirlik, duyarlılık, şeffaflık değerlerinin temel ortak değerler olarak öne çıktığı saptanmıştır.The aim of this study is to investigate whether there is any divergence or convergence in the organizational values of companies operating in today's global environment in light of relevant discussions about the topic. The sample of the study is the most admired companies on the Fortune 500 Global and Fortune 500 Turkey lists. For the National Cultural Differences, four dimensions of the Hofstede’s (2001) model are used: "Power Distance", "Avoidance of Uncertainty", "Individualism-Collectivism" and "Masculinity-Femininity". For organizational values, organizational value categories developed by Wal vd., (2008) were taken as basis. The data of the study was obtained from the public information on the web pages of the companies. Content analysis was applied for the analysis of the data. The findings were evaluated in terms of the dimensions on Hofstede's cultural map and countries. It has been determined that all of the 20 values included in the research are included in the declarations on the web pages of both Turkish companies and American companies. It has been observed that the organizational values of the Turkish companies and the organizational values of the U.S. companies are largely similar. This finding supports the idea of convergence in organizational values. In addition, legality, reliability, sensitivity and transparency values were found to be the core common values for all countries in the study

Social Media Dialogue: An Analysis of the Social Media Presence of Selected Fortune 500 Companies

This paper investigates the manner in which the companies engage various publics in the realm of social media. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the type of communication Fortune 500 companies use in their social media presence. Analyzing the web sites, Facebook fan pages and Twitter accounts of 21 Fortune 500 companies, the present study assesses the dialogic efforts of these companies using Kent and Taylor\u27s (1998) five dialogic principles. Results suggest that the researched companies have an established social media presence. The accounts are developed but not distinctly dialogic. Further research may assess the quality of the relationships between companies and their publics and investigate potential ways of improving them