Evaluating the factors of corporate website favorability: a case of UK and Russia

Purpose - This research evaluates the significance of the corporate website favorability notion and examines its factors in developing competitive advantage in the context of retail and service settings in UK and Russia.
Design/methodology/approach - Based on the attribution, social identity, and signaling theories, this research adopted the qualitative exploratory approach by conducting 14 interviews with retail experts and 8 focus groups with retail users in UK and Russia, combined with experts in website design, communication, and marketing.
Findings - The research findings indicated that it is crucial to build and maintain a favorable corporate website that reveals the corporate identity as part of the overall company strategy. The study suggests that navigation, visual, information, usability, customization, security, availability, website credibility, customer service, perceived corporate social responsibility, and perceived corporate culture are the factors of corporate website favorability that contribute to the company’s competitive advantage. The findings show that consumers from Russia, as well as from UK found the significance of a favorable corporate website (i.e. corporate website favorability), as well as the factors affecting corporate website favorability. However, consumers in UK are more critical and demanding in the level of expectation of the website overall and put more weight than consumers from Russia on the perceived corporate social responsibility, perceived corporate culture, customer service, and website credibility
Practical implications - Corporate website favorability should be adopted by the companies, as part of the overall corporate identity management. Furthermore, it is advised to take into consideration the variations in the level of importance of the factors of corporate website favorability in different countries. The findings of this research suggest that this investigation will make a considerable managerial contribution to the understanding of a company’s decision-makers, communication professionals and website specialists about the building of a favorable corporate website in line with corporate identity strategy of the company.
Originality/value - There has been little systematic study of the effect of corporate websites on consumer evaluations of the websites, also there is a lack of research in regard to the factors that contribute to the development of a favorable corporate website (i.e. corporate website favorability). This is the first research of its kind to find the effect of corporate website favorability in Russia, representing a non-western country, and the UK, representing a western country. Therefore, it contributes to the corporate visual identity literature by presenting the corporate website favorability construct and demonstrating the factors that influence corporate website favorability.

This is the accepted version of the manuscript "Evaluating the factors of corporate website favorability: a case of UK and Russia", published in the journal "Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal" available via the journal site at: https://doi.org/10.1108/QMR-09-2017-0122.
This article is © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited and permission has been granted for this version to appear here. Emerald does not grant permission for this article to be further copied/distributed or hosted elsewhere without the express permission from Emerald Group Publishing Limited.