4. 4.2. Data collection
Our sample was obtained through a simple random sampling technique.
First, a sample frame of 170,000 subscribers with an email address was
provided by the Technical Department of the property developer.
Second, each subscriber was assigned a number, ranging from 1 to
170,000. Then, 10,000 subscribers were chosen by matching the
number with output from a random number generator.
The questionnaire was posted on the company’s portal.
An invitation letter with a hyperlink to the Web page with the
questionnaire was sent to each selected subscriber.
The letter explained the purpose of the study and encouraged the
subscribers to participate in the survey to help improve the portal’s
service quality.
5. 4.2. Data collection
A total of 2120 subscribers responded within a week.
After data screening, we eliminated 128 incomplete and
repeat questionnaires. As a result, the total effective
sample was 1992 or 19.92% of the sampled subscribers.
As all the questionnaires were collected within a week,
we did compare earlier and later responses. The non-
respondent question was examined by comparing
respondents’ demographic variables, i.e., age, sex,
marital status, and education levels, with those of non-
respondents, which was available from the portal’s
subscriber database. A t-test indicated that there were
no significant differences. Thus, our data were suitable
for further analysis.
6.
7.
8. 4. Methodology
Companies included in this study were selected from
the list of the 500 largest global corporations
published annually by Fortune magazine. This source
was used because such companies provide leadership
in the use of information
technology [14], [15], [16] and [17], are leaders in
their industry, have the resources to develop and
maintain fully-featured web sites, and represent a true
global mixture of organizations.
9.
10.
11. 6. Methodology
Purposive sampling was employed. This approach
obtained an overall frame of potential respondents and
then created a sub-frame of respondents with desired
characteristics.
Such designs are considered entirely appropriate in
explanatory studies that examine unique or complex
phenomena [53].
The sampling frame adopted was the East Edition of The
Directory of Top Computer Executives [1]. This contains
the names, titles, addresses, and phone numbers of top
computer executives in the Eastern half of the United
States. The entities within the directory include Fortune
2000 firms (manufacturing and service), educational
institutions, hospitals, and governmental agencies.
12. 6. Methodology
In developing the desired sub-frame, all hospitals,
educational institutions, and governmental agencies were
eliminated because they have entirely different success
factors.
Next, the job titles of respondents remaining in the frame
were examined to determine their level of planning activity.
Firms whose senior IS manager had the job title of: Chief
Information Officer, Vice President, Director of Strategic
Planning, or Director of MIS were retained.
The resultant sub-frame consisted of 1100 business entities.
From this, 600 firms were chosen at random.
13.
14.
15. 3. Research design
As a sample frame we used two directories: Yahoo
(www.yahoo.com) and the Dutch Yellow Pages
(www.markt.nl).
The directory ‘Business and Economy – Companies’
of the Yahoo Guide provides one of the best known
international lists of links to commercial Web sites;
the majority of its companies are from the US.
The Dutch Yellow Pages contains companies from the
Netherlands only.
Altogether, we analyzed 651 Web sites, 501 from
Yahoo and 150 from the Dutch Yellow Pages.
16. 3. Research design
To select companies from both directories, we
applied a sampling procedure that was a
combination of quota sampling and proportionate
stratified sampling.
The first was used because of the dominance of
computer (related) firms on the Internet. A random
sample would mostly contain IT-companies. We
selected 25 categories (or quota’s) from the Yahoo
directory, see Table 1.
If possible we selected a minimum of 15 sites per
category (10 for Dutch Yellow Pages). The
remaining sites were selected as a proportion of the
size of each category.
17. 3. Research design
To select sites within a category, the stepsize s
was computed as
where C is the category size, the number of sites
in a category, and n is the number of sites from
that category that must be included in the
sample. Within a category each sth site was
selected, until n was reached.
