The aim of this chapter is to evaluate the website of Turkish companies in service industry which are listed in İstanbul Stock Exchange. Within this framework, two different dimensions are identified by considering technology acceptance model. On the other side, six different criteria are also defined based on SERVQUAL method. Fuzzy DEMATEL method is used to weight dimensions and criteria. Moreover, fuzzy VIKOR and fuzzy TOPSIS approaches are considered to rank the service companies according to the website overall performance. The findings show that being user friendly is the most significant criterion with respect to the website effectiveness. Another important result is that banks are on the first rank for this aspect whereas telecommunication companies have the lowest performance. Therefore, it is recommended that telecommunication companies should firstly focus on improving the factors that make the use of website very easily for the investors. This situation attracts the attention of these investors and it has a positive influence on the financial performance of these companies.
TopIntroduction
Financial communication is a very significant aspect that has a direct effect on the financial performance of the companies. It refers to all news, strategies, tactics and other kind of information related to the companies which are aimed to be transferred to the shareholders (Rensburg and Botha, 2014). As it can be understood from these definitions that it plays a crucial role to build an effective relationship with the investors (Yüksel et al., 2018). Owing to this issue, it can be possible to attract the attention of the potential investors. Thus, it can have a positive influence on the profitability of the companies (Mayew, 2012).
Effective website is also important point for these companies with respect to the building strong communication with the shareholders (Tan and Wei, 2006). The main reason behind this situation is that website of the company is the first way of the investors to make analysis. If the website of a company is user-friendly and it is possible to reach all necessary information on this website easily, it can provide a competitive advantage for this company in comparison with its rivals. Because of this issue, most of the companies have a department of website management in order to provide an effective website to the shareholders (Pallud and Straub, 2014).
This situation gives information that having an effective website for the companies is a crucial aspect for the sustainable growth (Sreedhar et al., 2010). It also explains that websites of the companies should be evaluated periodically so as to understand the ways to make improvement. Otherwise, ineffective website has a reducing effect on the motivations of the investors. It can be seen that the method, which is used in the evaluation process, has a key role for this purpose. In other words, an effective methodology should be considered in this process to have better evaluation of the website (Yen et al., 2007).
Technology acceptance model is accepted as a successful methodology to evaluate the performance of the website. It was developed by Davis (1986) and it mainly gives information that how users accept the technology. In other words, regarding the website usage of the companies, this approach explains how customers think about the websites of the companies. This methodology considers two main factors which are perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use (Legris et al., 2003). With respect to the perceived usefulness, it focuses on the possibility of the technology to increase the performance (Ersoy, 2011). On the other side, as for perceived ease of use, it explains whether this technology can be used without too much effort (Pavlou, 2003).
In addition to the technology acceptance model, SERVQUAL is also an important methodology to understand customer expectations. This method was developed by Parasuraman et al. (1988) and five different dimensions are taken into the consideration. With respect to the dimension of reliability, the accuracy of the service is considered. Moreover, the dimension of assurance gives information about the knowledge of the employees (Cronin and Taylor, 1994). Additionally, physical facilities of the companies are taken into the consideration in tangibles dimension. Furthermore, empathy refers to the paying attention to the customers whereas the willingness of help to the customers is considered in the dimension of the responsiveness (Basfirinci and Mitra, 2015).