Abstract

The nature and extent of use of a website is an important determinant of the success of an electronic business initiative. Hence, it becomes important to understand the different factors behind the use of a website by its intended users. Such an understanding would enable an organization to recognize the drivers of the use of its website and to strive to reduce the gap between the planned and the actual use of the same. While the individual causal factors influencing the actual website usage are quite well understood, the concerned literature is in a highly fragmented state and thus cannot yield concrete guidelines to manage the phenomenon better. In this paper, the existing literature on the use of business websites has been critically examined. We also present a comprehensive interdisciplinary framework for analyzing the phenomenon of use of a business website. Finally we illustrate, in the light of the framework, the scope for future research in this field.

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