Measuring the alignment of websites and organisational critical activities

Abstract

Organisational critical activities (OCAs) are activities which must receive constant and ongoing management attention in order for that organisation to be successful in its industry. These activities may not be well supported by an organisation's website, or the website not well aligned to the organisation's OCAs. This research first develops the notion of OCAs and then reports on the development of an evaluation methodology to measure the alignment of websites with an organisation's OCAs. The methodology was tested across the university sector in New Zealand which comprises eight separate organisations. The results of the research found that measuring the alignment of OCAs elicited from key executives against an evaluation of the organisation's website is an effective way to determine what action needs to be taken to improve website support for OCAs.

Keywords:

• organisational critical activities
• organisational success
• website evaluation methodology
• case study

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Wei-Hsi Hung is an Associate Professor of Information Management at National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan. He received his Ph.D. and master degree (with First-Class Hons) from the Department of Management Systems at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. Prior to his postgraduate studies, his major was industrial engineering. His research interests are in the areas of Business-to-Business (B2B) e-commerce, IS alignment, knowledge management, and supply chain management. His research papers appeared in journals such as Decision Support Systems, Communications of the Association for Information Systems, Journal of Global Information Management, Pacific Asian Journal of Association for Information Systems, and Journal of Information Management.

Robert John McQueen is Professor of Electronic Commerce Technologies at the Waikato Management School, University of Waikato. He holds a Ph.D. from Waikato, a MBA from the Harvard Business School, and a BApSc in electrical engineering from the University of Waterloo. His research interests are in electronic commerce, computer-mediated group communication, and technology support for tacit knowledge building in individuals.

David C. Yen is currently a Dean and Professor of Management Information Systems (MIS) at School of Economic and Business, SUNY-Oneonta. Professor Yen is active in research and has published books and articles which have appeared in ACM Transaction of MIS, Decision Support Systems, Information & Management, IEEE Computer Society: IT Professionals, Information Sciences, Communications of the ACM, Government Information Quarterly, Information Society, Omega, International Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce, and Communications of AIS among others. Professor Yen's research interests include data communications, electronic/mobile commerce, database, and systems analysis and design.

Patrick Y. K. Chau is Padma and Hari Harilela Professor in Strategic Information Management at the Faculty of Business and Economics of the University of Hong Kong (HKU). He obtained his Ph.D. in business administration from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. At HKU, his teaching and research interests are in management of IS, electronic commerce, and research methodology. His work has appeared in leading IS journals such as Journal of Management Information Systems, MIS Quarterly, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, Decision Sciences, Decision Support Systems, Information & Management, International Journal of Electronic Commerce, and others.