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The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of the balanced scorecard methodology in web services quality. A balanced scorecard framework is developed for web services quality by identifying critical success factors that make up the business objectives, measures, targets, and initiatives.

The framework of web services quality applying the balanced scorecard methodology is developed by integrating the theory of balanced scorecard and web services. Then, case studies with two organizations in the agricultural industry are deployed to test the framework of the balanced scorecard.

The findings of the exploratory case studies suggest a cyclic process that was created with the use of the balanced scorecard approach to evaluate the quality of web services applications and in order to integrate quality and to provide a strategic map and indicate how information will be disseminated so that the potential use of web services can be attained.

The study contributes to practitioners as they will have a system which will provide them with timely, cost‐effective, scalable, manageable, and reliable feedback on their strategic performance. Further, the balanced scorecard gives a holistic view of the firms by simultaneously examining its performance from four perspectives; namely learning and growth, internal business processes, customer, and financial perspectives.

Unlike previous research that uses the balanced scorecard to measure the economic impact on the firm. This paper discusses the role of the balanced scorecard methodology in improving the service quality of firms using web services. Further, it provides lessons learned, as in measures that firms can be aware of in the quality of the services they provide.

Despite the growth in adoption of technology by governments, the assessment of quality in electronically delivered public services has been relatively lacking. Past researches on information systems have identified information and service quality, system use, playfulness, and system design quality as critical factors of successful service delivery in e‐commerce. The purpose of this paper is to empirically test the applicability of system and information quality criteria in evaluating government e‐services websites. The main research problem identified in this study was “what are the system and information quality characteristics of government service delivery websites?”

Based on a survey of 97 Municipalities from all the 21 regions of Sweden, the authors examine the presence of system quality features, specifically functionality, navigation, and accessibility; and measures of information quality in government websites. A systematic random sampling was chosen as the suitable approach; 290 municipalities are organized in 21 counties and we have chosen every 3rd number of municipalities from the list. An online survey was conducted, with 408 valid responses taken. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted for system and information quality.

Results indicate that accessibility and the navigation facility are important in determining a citizen's perceived system quality. Information preciseness, timeliness, and sufficiency were found to be key measures of information quality in government e‐services. Furthermore, an important finding from this research is that theories from information systems (IS), e‐commerce, and marketing were found to be applicable in assessing government e‐tax services within the broader area of government‐to‐citizen (G2C) service delivery systems. In addition, a quantitative study was conducted among citizens to determine system and information quality characteristics.

The results presented in this paper can help the authorities to identify key quality criteria for e‐tax services that are valued by citizens and consequently improve service levels. Taking the context into consideration, additional variables are incorporated from literature that spans several disciplines (IS, e‐commerce, and marketing), and some re‐specifications are made to identify system and information quality criteria in the context of an e‐tax filing service, which was the main theoretical contribution of this study.

The purpose of this paper is to examine a comprehensive model explaining how web site design influences consumer's emotional and cognitive responses and contributes to satisfaction and word‐of‐mouth (WOM) communication in an online shopping context.

A total of 804 female college students completed an online survey after browsing one of two mock web sites developed to manipulate web site design quality.

Web site design quality showed positive direct effects on pleasure, arousal, and perceived information quality and indirect effects on satisfaction and WOM intention. Pleasant shopping experience increased positive perceptions and satisfaction. The results also showed that satisfaction mediated the relationship between emotional and cognitive responses and positive WOM intention.

Although an online survey was used to increase the reality of an online shopping experience, uncontrolled conditions may have influenced the results of the study. Further research needs to be conducted in a laboratory setting to control these factors.

The paper theoretically extends the applicability of the stimulus‐organism‐response paradigm to satisfaction and electronic WOM intention research and fills the gap in the current online shopping literature. The paper also offers valuable information to online retailers to maximize consumer satisfaction and generate positive WOM using web site design.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how offline brand trust moderates: the relationship between consumers' general attitude toward the internet and their perceptions of the quality of a retailer's web site and the relationship between their perceived web site quality and intention to shop from the web site.

Two hundred young female consumers participate in the study. Each selected one of three pre‐determined apparel retailer brands that she has either had experience with or are familiar with. Participants are then asked to keep their selected retailer in mind when completing an online questionnaire. They are also asked to browse the retailer's web site in search of a shirt or blouse. Factor and multiple‐regression analyses are conducted to test hypotheses.

Offline brand trust exerted a significant moderating effect in the relationship between the efficiency factor of attitude toward the internet and the usability and information quality factor of web site quality. Offline brand trust also played a moderating role in the relationship between the interactivity factor of web site quality and online shopping intention. Implications for multi‐channel apparel retailers are discussed.

While a great deal of research has been conducted to study brand trust, most has focused on product brands not on retail brands. Furthermore, none of the studies on brand trust has questioned nor investigated the moderating role of retail brand trust in the relationship between consumer characteristics and their attitudes and behaviors toward the company's new business format. This paper seeks to contribute to the extant literature on brand trust and multi‐channel retailing by exploring the role of offline brand trust in shopping at a multi‐channel retailer's web site.

The purpose of this paper is to examine consumer attitudes toward online shopping in Jordan. The paper introduces an integrated model which includes trust, perceived benefits, perceived web quality, and electronic word of mouth (eWOM) along with their relationships in order to examine their effects on consumer attitudes toward online shopping.

A structured and self-administered online survey was employed targeting online shoppers of a reputable online retailer in Jordan; i.e. MarkaVIP. A sample of 273 online shoppers was involved in the online survey. A series of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to assess the research constructs, unidimensionality, validity, and composite reliability. Structural path model analysis was also used to test the hypothesized relationships of the research model.

The empirical findings of this study indicate that consumer attitudes toward online shopping is determined by trust and perceived benefits. Trust is a product of perceived web quality and eWOM and that the latter is a function of perceived web quality. Hence, trust and perceived benefits are key predictors of consumer attitudes toward online shopping, according to the results. Further, the authors also found that higher levels of perceived web quality lead to higher levels of trust in an online shopping web site. Perceived web quality was found to be a direct predictor of trust, and the former positively and significantly influences perceived benefits. Also, the authors found that 28 percent of the variation in online shopping attitudes was caused by perceived benefits and trust.

The research sample included only early adopters who are usually described as personal innovators and risk takers. Future research is encouraged to focus on other groups such as non-adopters to understand their online shopping attitudes. Another limitation is derived from the geographical context of the current study; that is Jordan. The findings are not necessarily applicable to other Arab countries and the rest of the world. Therefore, replications of the current study in different countries would most likely strengthen and validate its findings. Also, the study is cross-sectional which does not show how attitudes of consumers may change over time. The authors encourage future studies to employ a longitudinal design to understand the changes in consumers’ attitudes toward using online shopping over time. Finally, this study examined only one case in point and thus findings cannot be generalized to other online shopping web sites. Future research is highly encouraged to examine consumers’ attitudes toward other online shopping web sites inside and outside Jordan.

The paper supports the importance of trust and perceived benefits as key drivers of attitudes toward online shopping in emerging markets like Jordan. It further underlines the importance of perceived web quality contribution to perceived benefits and trust as well as the key role of the later in forming online shoppers’ attitudes. Online retailers’ executives and managers can benefit from such findings for future e-marketing strategies and acquire new customers to achieve long-term performance objectives.

This paper is one of the very few attempts that examined attitudes toward online shopping in the Arab world. Importantly, it revealed the drivers of online shoppers’ attitudes in Jordan. National and international online retailers planning to expand their operations to Jordan or to the Middle East Region have now valuable empirical evidence concerning the determinants of online shopping attitudes and online shoppers’ behavior in Jordan upon which e-marketing strategies can be formulated and implemented.

The objective of this paper is to investigate how webmasters within government bodies explain quality of websites. Despite the central position for advancing the communication, bridging usability tests and design, there are surprisingly few studies on how webmasters perceive, experience and explain website quality or design issues.

The authors' unit of analysis is webmasters from Norwegian web‐award‐winning organizations. Eight webmasters from four types of websites were interviewed. The websites were purposefully sampled, using the strategy of maximal variation sampling to maximize difference between the four types of websites.

The findings reveal that issues concerning usability are found to be an important dimension of website quality. The authors' analysis of how webmasters explain website quality reveals substantial variance in explanation of website quality. Repeated keywords of website quality are mainly related to user‐friendliness, effective website usage, content‐related issues and accessibility (WAI‐principles).

This study includes webmasters from award‐winning websites. In upcoming research contributions, it would add to the richness of the study if webmasters from non‐award‐winning websites were included. Measurement of website quality and success is widely addressed within the research literature. This paper offers the opportunity to understand how practitioners (i.e. webmasters) facilitate for website quality, grounded in their perception and explanations of which quality aspects they found to be of importance.

The website quality aspects identified in this paper can be used as insights for how to develop and improve the quality of websites with the public sector.

The overall digital enabled transformation of government appears to be guided by a rather heterogeneous set of quality standards. While a variance of quality standards might stimulate innovation in websites, it can also lead to a substantial difference in digital services provided to citizens. Thus, the authors' research stimulates the awareness of diversity of quality parameters and could have as an implication that national and international standards beyond accessibility standards are more explicitly shared and debated.

The aim of this paper is to provide insights into website practitioners' (i.e. webmasters') perception and explanation of quality aspects in websites. Webmasters are important contributors to the quality of available websites, and it is of particular benefit to learn about their suggestions. Most studies tackle perception of website quality from a user's point of view, while the added knowledge in this paper is the webmaster's explanation.

Grounded in the extended technology acceptance model and dual-process theory, the purpose of this paper is to develop a research model to examine the impact of company-dependent (e.g. recruitment web sites) and company-independent (e.g. social influences) information sources on job seeker perceptions of organizational attractiveness.

Utilizing data collected from 193 participants in Taiwan, various relationships in the research model are tested using the partial least squares approach.

The results indicated that job seeker beliefs (perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use) of recruitment web sites and social influence factors (informational and normative social influences) are important antecedents of organizational attractiveness. Furthermore, system quality affects perceived ease of use, while information quality and service quality influence both perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of recruitment web sites.

Organizations need to put time and effort into ensuring that job seekers are satisfied with the information and service quality of recruitment web sites, since these two service-oriented web site features can enhance job seeker perceptions of organizational attractiveness. Additionally, perhaps the recruitment web sites can add links designed specifically for the social influencers such as parents, significant others, or teachers.

The empirical approach is novel to the recruitment literature, and this study demonstrates its viability in providing a more comprehensive examination of the role of recruitment-related information sources for organizational attractiveness perceptions. These contributions also have practical implications for organizations: understanding how various recruitment-related information sources are likely to affect job seeker attraction and application decisions may improve organizational recruitment effectiveness by building a well-designed recruitment web site and positive word of mouth from existing employees.

This study explores non‐governmental organizations' (NGOs') web sites to determine the extent the web site facilities information quality, system quality and service quality in relation to target audiences.

In order to evaluate the current status of information quality, system quality and service quality on the internet, the research utilizes a content analysis of an international sample of NGOs associated to United Nations.

This paper provides useful information on some international NGOs' web sites. In this line of work, results indicate that the web site offers a new communication medium with which to maximize support for NGOs and enhance business performance through higher cost‐effectiveness and a more practical manner in which to carry out their tasks. However, the results of this research show that the most web sites have an average effectiveness when communicating interactively. Additionally, this paper provides evidence of current web site effectiveness and advice for its improvement in a specific social sector.

The main limitation of this study is the sample size and nature because the research has only included some NGOs associated to United Nations, which may bias results. Therefore, other non‐profit organizations whose target audiences are different will be dealt with in future research.

This research contributes to improving the effectiveness of NGOs' web site bidirectional communication with users, enhancing the quality of the exchange between organization and target audience.

This work aims to help international NGOs improve the interactivity of web site communication through practical advice. Furthermore, this study is an attempt to fill the research gap on the evaluation about the quality web site design of NGOs.

The purpose of this study is: to examine the travel web sites quality dimensions that ultimately influence customers' satisfaction; and to conduct content analyses on the five prominent travel web sites.

A content analysis was conducted on the six prominent travel web sites as ranked by J.D. Power Consumer Report. A list of 53 attributes were selected, named, and categorized around the six web quality dimensions explored in this study.

The findings of the content analysis provide evidence to suggest that online travel companies are underperforming in terms of providing web service quality attributes that enhance customer satisfaction.

The focus of this study was only on the six prominent travel sites. However, the results cannot be generalized to all travel services. Additionally, only 53 attributes were extracted from the six web quality dimensions. There is a possibility that this study did not cover all the attributes that are part of the six dimensions.

Online travel companies can use the quality measurement tool developed in this study to detect service quality weaknesses and strengths. Moreover, travel businesses need to consider integrating features that make shopping experiences more enjoyable.

This study finding contributes to the present body of knowledge and also highlights web site quality dimensions that customers utilize in their assessment of overall online satisfaction.

To identify what constitutes web site quality or what makes a web site effective.

This article examines and integrates four sets of factors that capture e‐commerce web site quality using an IS success model: system quality, information quality, service quality, and attractiveness. A questionnaire survey was conducted to verify the measures of web site quality. Based on TAM, a framework is also developed relating web site quality to customers' beliefs (perceived usefulness and ease of use), attitudes (preferences for the site), and intentions (to revisit the site).

A set of instruments of web site quality has been developed and empirically validated by factor analysis.

The research is based on a sample of students browsing several book web sites and they may not sense the web site quality across different B2C commercial web sites such as music, computer, travel, clothes and flowers. Data in these domains should be collected in any future research to examine further the measures developed here.

Guidelines for web interface design are proposed.

This paper fulfils the identification of web site quality and the development and validation of its measures and offers a framework and practical guidelines for e‐commerce managers and web designers.