Organizational use of the internet

Abstract

Purpose – To contribute to the development of a theoretically grounded measure of organizational internet use (OIU) by conceptualizing and operationalizing it as a theoretical construct, and by empirically assessing its reliability and validityDesign/methodology/approach – The focal construct OIU was conceptualized as an abstract collective object with three components, forming an index with formative, causal indicators. A multi‐method research design – including a cross‐sectional drop‐and‐collect survey among small technology‐based firms (STBFs) in Germany and an observational study of web sites – was applied to assess empirically the theoretically developed construct OIU. This was achieved by using the component‐based partial least squares (PLS) structural modeling technique using PLS‐Graph.Findings – The empirical assessment of the scale, applied to the international business domain, proved to be reliable and valid in the structural model and across assessment methods.Research limitations/implications ...