Website quality and performance indicators including ratio numbers – A study of German and Danish SME companies

Heiko Thimm (), Karsten Boye Rasmussen and Wolfgang Gohout
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Heiko Thimm: Pforzheim University, School of Engineering, Tiefenbronner, Pforzheim, Germany.
Karsten Boye Rasmussen: University of Southern Denmark, Department of Marketing & Management, Campusvey 55, 5230 Odense M, Denmark.
Wolfgang Gohout: Pforzheim University, School of Engineering, Tiefenbronner Str. 65, 75175 Pforzheim, Germany.

Journal of Business, 2016, vol. 1, issue 3, 22-36

Abstract: We expect economic benefits from companies with good company websites. However, only little is known about the real effects of good websites on company success. Based on data about 1,000 small and medium-sized European production companies in Germany and Denmark a study is conducted in order to uncover correlations between economic indicators and the quality of company websites. The set of performance indicators for the companies are extracted from the ORBIS company database. The website quality data are obtained through a criteria-based evaluation method. A set of multivariate analyses of the data are performed using the Pearson method and the Spearman method. These analyses also include investigations for the constituent parts of indicators that are ratio numbers. At the country level, it turns out that in some areas the Danish companies outperform the German companies. Also the obtained results show that there exists a correlation between the website quality and the number of employees. A yet insignificant correlation between website quality and the ratio number ‘financial gearing’ is revealed, too. However, when decomposing ‘financial gearing’ into its constituent parts, bivariate correlation analyses with the constituent parts lead to highly significant correlations.

Keywords: Company performance indicators; Correlation analysis; Small and medium enterprises; Website quality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C1 C8 M13 M15 O32 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:lrc:larjob:v:1:y:2016:i:3:p:22-36

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