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The real estate industry is an e‐commerce anomaly. Although the overall growth of ecommerce is driven by the business‐to‐business sector, the majority of real estate e‐commerce is derived from its retail‐oriented residential sector. This study examines the structure of residential and commercial real estate websites, with the goal of determining whether some patterns of content might increase the quality and quantity of information available to buyers and sellers thereby contributing to the disparity between residential and commercial real estate e‐commerce growth. The results of the research show residential real estate websites offer richer informational content than commercial real estate websites. No significant differences are found for the user friendliness and functionality (ie ancillary services) provided by residential and commercial real estate websites.

The purpose of this research is to disprove the common assumptions of research into privacy concerns from an adversarial paradigm, which does not work in the context of the internet. These assumptions usually claim that internet users who have higher privacy concerns will disclose less information, and that data subjects are always adversarial to data users without considering social contexts.

The study surveyed 400 respondents from China, The Netherlands, Taiwan and the USA. It examined not only their privacy concerns, but also their actual practices, in order to identify any similarities between concerns and practices.

This study proved that internet users' privacy concerns do not reflect their privacy practices and showed how social contexts (Web category) influence users' privacy practices. Respondents from China, The Netherlands, Taiwan and the USA perceive Website categories in different ways, reflecting the influences of political systems, cultural background and economic development.

This study maintains that future research on online privacy should take contexts or situations into account. To confirm this, additional research should be undertaken on how social contexts in other countries affect users' privacy concerns and practices. Investigators should also study what makes users more likely to disclose information.

This study suggests that legislation provides the basic protection, while self‐regulation supplies the detailed principles of online privacy. Privacy education teaches users how to create their “zone of privacy” and how to be responsible for their online practices, in order to build an abuse‐free information environment on the internet.

This study aims to map the information landscape as it unfolds to users when they search for health topics on general search engines. Website sponsorship, platform type and linking patterns were analysed in order to advance the understanding of the provision of health information online.

The landscape was sampled by ten very different search queries and crawled with VOSON software. Drawing on Roger's framework of information politics on the web, the landscape is described on two levels. The front-end is examined qualitatively by assessing website sponsorship and platform type. On the back-end, linking patterns are analysed using hyperlink network analysis.

A vast majority of the websites have commercial and organisational sponsorship. The analysis of the platform type shows that health information is provided mainly on static homepages, informational portals and general news sites. A comparison of ten different health domains revealed substantial differences in their landscapes, related to domain-specific characteristics.

The size and properties of the web crawl were shaped by using third party software, and the generalisability of the results is limited by the selected search queries. Further research exploring how specific characteristics of different health domains shape provision of information online is suggested.

The demonstrated method can be used by organisations to discern the characteristics of the online information landscape in which they operate and to inform their business strategies.

The study examines health information landscapes on a large scale and makes an original contribution by comparing them across ten different health domains.

This study aims to contribute perspective into how user-generated content (UGC) can be found to reinforce, or challenge, the commercial promotion of volunteer tourism in Nepal. Volunteer tourism is an expanding alternative niche market spanning the globe. More understanding is needed to identify potential conflicts that may arise in relation to information communicated via official promotional materials from volunteer tourism organisation websites and from UGC on sites such as TripAdvisor.

A qualitative content analysis of websites and online UGC gathered from identified promotional websites and TripAdvisor used to inform and persuade tourists was analysed.

Three themes emerged from the analysis of promotional websites: perspective outcomes of volunteerism on locals and VolunTourists, requirements of participating volunteers and the ability of volunteer organisations to effectively meet expectations. The TripAdvisor forum content is broken down into two main areas: requests/recommendations and critical reflections. UGC is playing a pivotal role to inform future VolunTourists, based on experiences by previous volunteers. Commercial websites emphasise achievable positive outcomes by unskilled/unqualified volunteers, with the support of credible volunteer organisations. Conversely, UGC focusses on negative outcomes associated with volunteer tourism.

This study provides insights into how online platforms are being used by consumers. This study suggests that significant disparities exist between content communicated via promotional websites and UGC, with a number of important implications discussed.

This study aims to address this gap in the understanding of the authors through the analysis of emerged themes communicated via Nepal volunteer websites and TripAdvisor forums. Moreover, there is a need for volunteers to be more informed about the complexities of the industry and volunteer organisations, acknowledging more needs to be considered to meet the requirements/expectations of volunteers.

The purpose of this study is to explore the effects of review group’s content-related and environment-associated attributes on information adoption intention of information readers. In addition, this study further investigates the effects of these determinants in different websites with different commercial attributes (i.e. online stores and third party forums).

This study used a structured online survey to collect data from an online store and a third party forum in China; totally 302 responses were collected.

The empirical results confirm that all of the five determinants significantly affect the information adoption intention of information readers. Furthermore, the authors found that four of the determinants have distinct effects in different websites.

The findings of this study validate the significant moderating role of website attributes in readers’ information processing. Information readers use distinct criteria to evaluate the received review information; electronic word-of-mouth determinants have varying effects on different websites with different commercial attributes.

Rural tourism facilities in Poland were very keen on amateur websites to promote their hospitality services from 2000 to 2018. In most cases, the websites were nonprofessional, hosted on free servers and made by family members or friends of the holding. After search engine algorithms changed in 2015–2019, the websites started to go extinct on a large scale; they were deleted and often replaced with a more modern design and a commercial domain. These resources offered a rare opportunity to gain insight into rural tourism, rural changes and socioeconomic and cultural phenomena.

The paper’s objective is to demonstrate with an analysis of archived Polish rural tourism websites that digital cultural artefacts are generated in rural areas. The study was an analysis of selected development attributes of rural tourism websites found in the Internet Archive. The analysis involved those attributes that are important for determining whether a website or content can be considered digital cultural heritage assets.

The conclusions demonstrate that rural digital cultural heritage is a set of digital artefacts created in rural areas with their characteristics. Rural digital artefacts are records of ICT, infrastructure, environmental, cultural and socioeconomic changes.

The “digital assets” of rural areas are yet to be discussed in the context of rural cultural heritage, as a set of artefacts created in these areas and characteristic of them.

Interactive media strategies and digital tools have enabled advertisers to target children with promotional offers and creative appeals.

Based on theories related to metaphors in advertisements, cognitive comprehension by children, promotional appeals, and presentation techniques, the research for this study comprised a content analysis of 1,980 online banner advertisements with reference to use of metaphors, promotional appeals, creative content, and selling techniques.

The research study concludes that online advertising to children, in contrast to traditional advertising vehicles, is characterized by (a) a vibrant visual metaphor, (b) surfeit of animated content, (c) interactive features, (d) myriad product types, and (e) creative content for a mixed audience of adults and children.

This study argues that the impact and content of the Internet as a new advertising medium are distinctly different from traditional characteristics of television and print.

This chapter examines the adoption of online recruitment — both corporate websites and commercial jobs boards — within the United Kingdom and the possible reasons behind its adoption. The chapter also reports on the development of a structured model explaining the factors that may affect an employer's decision of whether or not to adopt online recruitment methods, using Rogers (2003) diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory as a framework. The chapter draws conclusions as to why organizations adopt online recruitment, as well as discussing the use of DOI theory for the study of e-HRM in general.

Literature-identified website benchmarking (WB) approaches are generally time consuming, survey based, with little agreement on what and how to measure website components. The purpose of this paper is to establish a theoretical approach to WB. A comprehensive design science research methodology (DSRM) artifact facilitates the evaluation of the website against the universal set of benchmark components. This knowledge allows managers to gauge/reposition their websites.

DSRM establishes a website analysis method (WAM) artifact. Across six activities (problem identification, solution objective, artifact design/development, artifact demonstration, artifact evaluation, results communication), the WAM artifact solves the DSRM-identified WB problem.

The WAM artifact uses 230 differentiated components, allowing managers to understand in-depth and at-level WB. Typological website components deliver interpretable WB scores. Website comparisons are made at domain (aesthetic, marketing, technical) and/or functional levels.

New/emergent components (and occasionally new functions) are included (and redundant components removed) as upgrades to the DSRM WAM artifact’s three domains and 28 functions. Such modifications help keep latest benchmarking comparisons (and/or website upgrades) optimized.

This DSRM study employs a dichotomous present/absent component approach, allowing the WAM artifact’s measures to be software programmed, and merged at three different levels, delivering a useful WB tool for corporates.

DSRM identifies the benchmarking problem. Rough-cut set-theory and mutual-exclusivity of components allow the causal-summing of typological website components into an objective WAM artifact WB solution. This new, comprehensive, objective-measurement approach to WB thus offers comparative, competitive, and website behavioral implications for corporates.

This study aims to investigate pharmaceutical company-sponsored disease information websites that are created and operated by pharmaceutical companies. Without clear indication of the site ownership, these websites look like non-advertising health information websites. Consumers’ responses to pharmaceutical company-sponsored disease information websites were examined in comparison to their responses to typical direct-to-consumer (DTC) drug brand websites.

A field experiment was conducted with a representative sample of US adults. Study subjects were randomly assigned to one of three live websites: pharmaceutical company-sponsored disease information website; DTC brand website with a high level of trust cues; and DTC brand website with a low level of trust cues. After viewing the assigned websites, participants completed an online questionnaire. The questionnaire included measurements for perceived website trust, attitude toward the website, intention to use information, perceived importance of prescription drug information, perceived health, prescription drug use, disposition to trust, prior experience with the website and demographic information.

The pharmaceutical company-sponsored disease information website generated higher website trust and more positive attitude and information use intention than the DTC drug brand websites. The results suggest that company-sponsored disease information websites may present some ethical issues related to website identity information transparency, which seems to inhibit consumers’ persuasion knowledge activation and proper coping responses. Because such websites look like non-advertising health information websites, consumers tend to evaluate them more positively and place higher trust in them than typical DTC drug brand websites with clear advertiser identification.

This is the first study examining pharmaceutical company-sponsored disease information websites, a relatively new form of covert DTC online advertising with potential ethical concerns due to the site identity transparency issues. This study’s findings suggest that consumers are likely to be more trusting and receptive of information presented in websites taking the form of a non-advertising health information website than in DTC brand websites.