Business use of the World Wide Web, with particular reference to UK companies

This paper reports on a further study of business use of the World Wide Web , continuing the research reported by Cockburn and Wilson (1996, Internatio nal Journal of Information Management, 16, 83-102) and Ng, Pan and Wilson ( 1998, International Journal of Information Management, 18, 291-314). It re- examines the business use of the Web by Ng's sampled companies and compares these with 300 United Kingdom companies. Just over a half of all the Web-s ites surveyed were used to give information about company products and serv ices and about 40% of companies were selling their products and services th rough their Web-sites. There were no major differences between the way Brit ish companies used their Web-sites, compared with the predominantly US comp anies of the general survey. It is hoped that by continuing and extending t his research certain trends regarding business use of the World Wide Web wi ll begin to emerge. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.