The Readership of Corporate Websites: A Cross-Cultural Study

Abstract

This study investigates people’s interest in the content of corporate websites based on a survey of 521 respondents from Asia and Europe. Four main findings emerge from this study: (a) People are primarily interested in recruitment information and product-related information on corporate websites but not in corporate social responsibility messages or financial information; (b) content features on corporate websites are retrieved more frequently out of work-related interest than out of private interest; (c) utilitarian motivations provide more compelling reasons for people to visit corporate websites than hedonic motivations do; and (d) Internet users from Asia visit corporate websites for hedonic purposes to a far greater extent than respondents from Europe do.