Web Sites and Organizational-Public Relationships
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imprint their web and e-mail addresses on letterhead and collateral, and encourage people to visit their
sites. Other methods include the creation of e-mail solicitations (also known as permission marketing:
Godin, 1999), online event, promotions and attractions, contests, sweepstakes, discounts and coupons
(Chase Shulock & Hanger, 2001; Palmer & Griffith, 1998). Such exposure efforts have shown to pay off
terms of placing an economic value on the addition of Internet channels (Geyskens, Gielens & Dekimpe,
2002). Importantly, many people now expect organizations to provide avenues of online communication,
consistent with their (sometimes unrealistic) expectations about an organization’s savviness in dealing
with technology (Kanoleas & Teigen, 2000).
Trial
use/adoption. Once prospective users are aware, they cannot really experience an online
relationship until they actually use try the system at least once. This is a critical step in the process. The
technology acceptance model (TAM) adapts Ajzen and Fishbein’s (1980) theory of reasoned action and
posits that acceptance of computer technologies by users is determined by ease of use and perceived
usefulness (Davis, 1989; Davis, Bagozzi & Warshaw, 1989). Ha and James (1998) argue that internet
technologies lend themselves to easy adoption based on Rogers’ (1995) criteria for characteristics of
innovation that facilitate adoption. Web sites thus offer a relative advantage and are simple, easily tried,
easy observable, and compatible with people’s knowledge of print and visual communications.
11
.
Relationship Building Based on Cognitive Processing
Once a user accesses an online communications system, some minimal level of cognitive
processing of online content is required. These including minimal learning of content and learning about
the source.
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Rogers (1995) argues that adoption rates are critical for the diffusion and adoption of interactive technologies. In
particular, technologies such as online communication must attain a critical mass, after which earlier adopted
influence later adopted, and in turn later adopters influence earlier adopters in a process of reciprocal
interdependence or a forcing quality. The result is an S-shaped adoption curve that is slower in the introductory
phases, but then escalates at a rate faster than for non-interactive innovations once adoptions reach between the 5%
and 20% adoption levels (Rogers, 1995, pp. 314-315, 324).
Convention