Website development by nonprofit organizations in an emerging market: a case study of Thai websites

Abstract

Nonprofit organizations are pertinent players in making the world a better place. Their websites aid in fulfilling their socially beneficial missions by being a platform to present themselves, to interact with stakeholders around the world, and to perform e‐transactions to raise funds. This interdisciplinary research explores nonprofit websites in Thailand, an emerging market, to determine their progress through an adapted e‐business stage model. A manual website decoding process was used to determine the development of websites, within the sector. On average, almost three‐quarters of the websites offered interactivity and just less than half conducted online transactions, but internationally connected organizations in Thailand were significantly more likely to do so. The findings suggest that while nonprofit websites in Thailand are progressing, there is significant lag between local Thai websites and those that have international connections. While the model successfully provided new data for understanding nonprofit websites in less developed markets, it may need to be modified in future studies. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Evaluating Public Charity Websites

“…Dumont () developed a virtual accountability index for nonprofit websites, but only applied it to a small segment of nonprofits in Illinois. Kirk et al (, ) adapted a stage model to evaluate nonprofit websites by categorizing the types of features available on nonprofit websites along developmental levels in the United States and in Thailand.…”

Exploring sources and outcomes of trust and commitment to nonprofit organizations: The case of Amnesty International Portugal

“…Strongly guided by principles of altruism and voluntarism, NGOs act in the pursuit of economic, social, and political goals, such as the defense of human rights, environmental causes, or humanitarian action in undeveloped countries (Kirk, Ractham, & Abrahams, ). The World Bank () regards NGOs in two types: operational NGOs (whose main purpose is to design and implement development‐related projects) and advocacy NGOs (which promote specific causes, raising awareness through lobbying and the press).…”

Engagement techniques by human services nonprofits: A research note examining website best practices

“…In fact, the literature reviewed typically does not adhere to any theoretical framework that links to the concepts of engagement or commitment. Exceptions include work by Kirk and Abrahams (2017) and Kirk, Ractham, and Abrahams (2016). In Kirk and Abrahams' (2017) study, the authors examine nonprofit websites for their inclusion of optimal website design elements, and how users engage with these elements.…”

“…Instead, Kirk and Abrahams' () interesting work is based on user engagement stages rather than a model of user engagement depth . Kirk et al () likewise use a stage‐based model to analyze Thai nonprofit websites and their increasing capacity to interact with users based upon the stage of website development. These staged models seem to conceptualize engagement as users' chronological or stepwise website activity, rather than activities that either indicate or cultivate an underlying commitment to the nonprofit itself.…”

“…The very “social” nature of Facebook and Twitter, for example, leads to most nonprofits not being able to understand the level of engagement at the individual level. Nevertheless, Aaker and Smith () and Kirk et al () note that social media platform use may be a significant asset for nonprofit organizations because of the potential to foster external stakeholder engagement and move communities toward collective social action. When implemented carefully, social media can establish lines of communication between organizations and their stakeholders, as well as lines of communication between and within stakeholder groups (Grunig & Huang, ; Ihm, ).…”