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The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of WebTrust assurance, issued by Certified Public Accountant (CPA) firms, on web purchase behaviour and to examine such effects provided by different‐sized CPA firms.

In an experiment, several scenarios were manipulated to simulate a number of web purchase environments in which participants make decisions online.

The results indicate that the WebTrust assurance seal has a significant effect on consumers' web purchase willingness. An “ordering effect” was also found, in that, removing the seal has more impact than obtaining the seal, and an assurance seal issued by big firms has greater impact than one issued by smaller firms.

This study contributes to the existing literature by focusing on an important yet rarely addressed issue of brand assurance services. The paper helps to understand this phenomenon in a global sense. Compared to the student participants used in the previous literature, this experiment provides a practical addition to the prevalent framework of trust in e‐commerce studies. Finally the research went a further step to test whether the web assurance provided by different‐sized auditors affects web consumers' purchase decisions.

The purpose of the paper is to test and compare a framework of firms' business sustainability endeavours with internal and external stakeholders in an oriental business context and to verify the validity and reliability of a stakeholder framework through time and across oriental and occidental business contexts.

Quantitative approach based on a questionnaire survey in corporate Taiwan with a response rate of 68.5%. Multivariate analysis is undertaken to uncover the measurement properties of a stakeholder framework.

A framework of firms' business sustainability endeavours with internal and external stakeholders appears valid and reliable through time and across occidental and oriental business contexts.

This study verifies and fortifies a stakeholder framework through time and across business contexts consisting of five stakeholder groups: upstream, the focal firm, downstream, market and societal.

The framework of firms' business sustainability endeavours provides guidance to firms in their endeavours of business sustainability with internal and external stakeholders.

This study contributes to existing theory and previous studies by validating a stakeholder framework of business sustainability with internal and external stakeholders beyond occidental business context to be also valid and reliable in oriental ones.