communicate with stakeholders using the web

COMMUNICATE WITH STAKEHOLDERS USING THE WEB Carlos J. Costa (*), Eugenia Luíso (*), Manuela Aparício (**) (*) Departamento de Ciências e Tecnologias de Informação, ISCTE, Portugal (*) [email protected] (**) Lusocredito, Lisboa, Portugal (**) [email protected]

ABSTRACT In this paper we analysed the use of the web as a communication media with the stakeholders. In fact, being a relatively inexpensive communication media, the web allows some organisations with few resources to spread its message to a wide audience. By using the stakeholder analysis it was possible characterising its audiences. But a question was left, is the web used to reach those stakeholders. In order to answer this question, we performed an analysis of websites of the NGOD (non-governmental organisations for development). KEYWORDS

World Wide Web, stakeholders’ analysis, non-governmental organisations

1. INTRODUCTION Internet, and specially the web, plays an important role in the communication policy of organisations. Especially organisations with few resources, like some non-profit organisations, have to choose some media to communicate with their stakeholders. The use of the web is a possible solution. In fact, the web is not just a media of advertising products, not even just a way of supporting the marketing strategy of the firm. The web may support the development all the corporate strategy (Kalakota & Robison, 2001). But, like any other organisation, non-profit organisations have to be managed effectively and efficiently (Druker, 1990). Nowadays, if business organisations may take advantages of the web, why nonprofit organisations may not use the technology in order to optimise their resources. In this paper we analyse in what extent NGODs use the web to communicate with their stakeholders. In the section two the concept of stakeholders is presented, as well as a brief literature review. Then we analyse literature concerning the NGO, non-profit, ‘voluntary organisations’ and the third sector. In forth section it is discussed the use of the web as way of communication with stakeholders. Then, in the fifth section, we report the survey and finally preliminary conclusions are presented.

2. STAKEHOLDERS’ ANALYSIS Organisations exist because of their ability to create value and acceptable outcomes for various groups of stakeholders. Those stakeholders are people who have an interest, claim, or stake in the organisation, in what it does, and in how well it performs (Freeman & Reed, 1983). In general, stakeholders are motivated to participate in an organisation if the received incentives exceed the value of the contribution they are required to make (March & Simon, 1958). The origins of stakeholders’ analysis started as an approach developed in the business and managerial science fields (Freeman & Reed, 1983, Freeman, 1984). But some researcher (Clarke & Clegg 1998), found that economic theory centred on notions of stakeholder relations goes back to the beginnings of industrialism and is embedded in ideals of 19th century co-operative movement and mutuality. Other researchers (Brugha

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COMMUNICATE WITH STAKEHOLDERS USING THE WEB

Communication organisation -> stakeholder

Communication Stakeholder -> organisation

Demand of stakeholder

Goals of stakeholder

Users/ consumer

Product/service information

Satisfy the need

Get the best product

Contributors

Activity information

Service and product requirement Opinions

Effectiveness and efficiency of contributions

Volunteers

Activity information, supervision, services

Labour, opinions

Contribute to society improvement through financial contribution, Tax reduction Contribute to society improvement through work

Employee (or workforce)

Supervision, services

Labour, opinions

Supplier

Orders, A dvertise

Government

Ask for permits, Information on activity performed Information on activity performed

Services, product information Legislation, Prescriptions

European Union Society

Activity information

Effectiveness and efficiency of work, acceptable working conditions Salary, Good working conditions

Clear instructions, money

Higher salary, Enjoy work, Get promotion Get more orders, expand

Meet laws, Have work done

Reduce costs with social activities, Receive tax, employment

Legislation, Prescriptions

Develop activity with effectiveness and efficiency

Improve harmonisation

Opinions

Develop activity with effectiveness and efficiency

Improve general welfare

Figure 1. ONG Stakeholders

& Varvasovszky, 2000) suggest that stakeholder theory appears (or reappears) in business and management discussions of the 1930s. Stakeholders’ analysis fits in with a great range of approaches (Burgoyne 1994, Grimble & Wellard 1997). Stakeholders' analysis is currently used in fields ranging from political science to policy development and international relations. The concept and related methodology have made significant inroads into poverty reduction studies and applied research pertaining to issues of sustainable livelihood, community-based natural resource and conflict management (Ramirez, 1999). Dispute resolution practices and the social actor perspective in the social sciences are also related to the stakeholders' analysis (Grimble & Wellard, 1997, Oudman et al., 1998). It is also part of World Bank thinking on participation methodology since about 1993 (MacArthur, 1997). Stakeholder’s analysis is also used in the information systems field, to analyse the impact of the implementation of a system.Stakeholders may be categorised into two groups (Jones, 1998): inside stakeholders, like shareholders, managers or workforce, and outside stakeholders, like customers, suppliers, government, unions, community and general public.

3. THE NGO The literature concerning non-government organisations (NGO), non-profit organisations, ‘voluntary organisation’ or third sector analyses a wide range of problems: - Growth and evolution of NGO roles in development and relief work, with policy issues of NGO relations with states and donors and with community-based action and social change (Drabek, 1987; Farrington et al., 1993; Clark, 1991). - The ‘aid industry’ (Clark, 1991; Hulme & Edwards, 1997; Fowler, 1997), - Development practices (Korten, 1990; Carroll, 1992; Smillie, 1995). - The potential of NGOs to transform development processes in positive ways (Korten, 1990; Clark, 1991; Edwards & Hulme, 1992). - Different explanations for the existence of the third sector (Powell, 1987; Anheier, 1995) - Policy issues such as the growth of contracting (Smith & Lipsky, 1993; Kramer, 1994). - Service delivery and welfare organisations (Billis, 1993; Salamon, 1994). - Organisational structure and management issues (Butler & Wilson, 1990; Young, 1992; Billis & Harris, 1996, Fowler, 1989) - Processes of development alongside the state, local government, foreign donors and private corporations (Farrington et al., 1993; Wuyts et al, 1992; Hulme & Edwards, 1997). Some authors also distinguish between non-profit and NGO, based in the literature research. While termed ‘non-profit’ or ‘voluntary’ organis ations focuses on literature related to developed countries

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IADIS International Conference e-Society 2003

(Salamon, 1994; Smillie, 1995), the concept “non-governmental organisations” is related to work which examines these organisations and their activities in developing countries (Korten, 1990; Clark, 1991; Edwards & Hulme, 1995). Based in the literature review, the following stakeholders were identified: users/ consumer, contributors, volunteers, employee, supplier, government, European Union and society. There are some stakeholders, whose behaviour towards the organisations is similar. For example, a nurse working as an employee in a public hospital, to a NGO or a private organisation probably will see the organisation just as an employer. A person may get an employment in any organisations and not knowing if it is a private, public or non-profit organisation. But, a nurse may also work as a volunteer, for example in an NGO working in a developing country. The main difference in relation to the stakeholders identified in the last section is the identification of volunteers, a special type of employees, that contributes to the organisation and does not have as main incentives the wages, bonuses, stability in employment or promotions. Users and consumers generally do not pay for the full service. In those organisations, the contributors are those that giving money for “charity” in fact pay the services, or at least a great amount of it. Finally, the role of the Government is different from that presented by Jones (1998) and analysed in the last section.

4. THE WEB The use of the Web allows the possibility of communicating with a great quantity of people with a relatively low cost. On the other hand, it allows the use of text, images, film and sound. The web has been used as a way to communicate with clients, obtaining information from clients, supporting the supply chain or procurement. The Web is used to support marketing (Carpenter, 2000). The web may be used in the enterprise resource planning (Perez et. al, 1999). As mentioned by Kalakota & Robison (2001) the web may support, not only the advertisement, but also communication with clients, suppliers (procurement), supporting all the value chain of a business or an industry. The Web may also be used as a privileged way to communicate with shareholders, investors and government, making available financial information. In what concerns this kind of information, it was found that organisations generally do not supply much information. But the purpose of this paper is not analysing just one stakeholder but having the general picture of the communication between stakeholders and organisations.

5. APPLICATION - NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT We used as field of application the Portuguese NGODs that have websites. Then, we developed a questionnaire including 32 questions related to the organisation, presentation, technology, language and conventions, as well as availability of information to stakeholders. We used a 5 point Likert scale. This questionnaire was then used by a group of four people that evaluated the sites of the Portuguese NGODs. The websites evaluated corresponded to the totality of the Portuguese ONGD with website (n=24). i = Each on of the organisations n = number of organisations (24) j = stakeholder

Contributors Volunteers 1.92 (1.62)

E m p l o y e e s

Suppliers

3.12 (1 .5 8 )

2.31 ( 1 .8 5 )

Society 3.46 (1.36 )

Organisation

n

∑

3.62 (1 .2 7 )

Users

j

=

X

i

i =1

n n

1.00 (0.00)

∑( X 1 .7 3 ( 0 . 9 8)

1.92 (0.89)

Sj = G o v e r n m e n t

E . U .

Figure 2. - NGO and stakeholders

678

X

i

i =1

n

− X )2

COMMUNICATE WITH STAKEHOLDERS USING THE WEB

The Figure 1 shows the result of the field study. The questions analysed was the following: in what extent the website is useful in the communication with the stakeholders of those organisations. In each arrow average and standard deviation may be seen. After analysing data, the following conclusions were evidenced: Technologie/formatss • “Downloadable” documents (txt, doc, pdf, ZIP files) • e-mail references • forms and CGI • Text in the page (HTML) • Multimedia (Flash, Quicktime) • Java applets

Document genres Mission declaration Service and product information Activity report Budget Direction speech Chat Guest Book Action Plan Meeting verbatim Games Simulations

Figure 3.Technologies and Document Genres

− The number of organisations classified as NGO for development having websites is very small (corresponding to just 26%), as long as 24 have website in a universe of 92 organisations. − NGOs presented in the web useful information to employees, society and users; − WebPages have no information (or useful information) to suppliers. In fact, the score given by the group to all websites was 1; − The information presented to contributors has an "average level" of usefulness (near 2.5); − In what concerns information to volunteers, there is a great variability, with some organisations presenting useful information and a great number of organisations without useful information, what was reflected in a great standard deviation; − Information to E.U. and government is reduced but all the organisations have similar data. A more detailed analysis is still being performed, and results are not yet completely evaluated. This analysis consists of evaluating the technology as well as document genres employed in the websi8tes of the NGO for development. Some of those technologies and document genres are presented in Figure 3.

6. CONCLUSION In this paper it was analysed the use of the Web by organisations, especially NGO, in the communication with their stakeholders. We verified that some of the sites are more oriented to stakeholders than others. But it was also observed that Web is not fully explored as a media for communication with its stakeholders. In fact, while some websites are just poor presences not fully developed, other websites are more sophisticated but do not have a clear purpose. On the other hand, some sites are specially used to communicate with some stakeholders, like society, users and employees. A detailed study of each site must be performed, identifying not just the technology employed but specially the document genres presented.

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