Paul H. Schwager, Ph.D.

R e s e a r c h >> D i s s e r t a t i o n

Dissertation

"The portal craze is over, but that's good news. Portals are now widely viewed not as the 'next big thing' but as a necessary part of business in today's economy." (Ruber, 2001)

Communication is a critical function of organizations (Barnard 1937). With the advent of the Internet and the concept of "Internet time," new approaches to communication are revolutionizing the way in which organizations carry out their communication with stakeholders. Information technologies, and the concept of portals, have changed the way most organizations relate to their environments. New buzzwords like business-to-consumer (B2C), business-to-business (B2B), business-to-employee (B2E), business-to-partner (B2P) and even portal-to-portal (P2P) and peer to peer (P2P) suggest that the Internet is changing the very nature of how businesses operate and communicate. Earlier generations of information systems have tended to be proprietary, using electronic data interchange (EDI) methodologies and client-server local area networks to improve business processes. Such legacy systems have been successful in providing an information base to support operational levels where the task structure facilitates automation. However, in today's new digital Internet world, legacy systems have proven to be less flexible in responding to changing communication needs than Internet based portals. In addition, less-structured internal and external information required for tactical or strategic decision-making is also critical to maintaining organizational performance during periods of rapid change.

The purpose of this study is to understand how portals impact stakeholder relationships within this electronic business environment. The study proposes to extend the understanding of information systems through the application of portals as critical stakeholder communication and information channels.  Employing a muliple case study approach, this study utilzes four cases based on published data (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Cisco, and Dell) as well as four cases based on interviews (Lowe's, SAIC, WC Bradley/Char-Broil, and NetBank) in advancing our understanding of the relationship between organizations and customers.

Committee:
William R. Boulton, DBA (Chair)
Terry A. Byrd, Ph.D.
Thomas E. Marshall, Ph.D.

Research Questions:
Strategies - How do organizations address stakeholders?
1. What are the strategies for creating customer value?
2. How are customer relationships managed?

Organization - What does the organization adapt?
3. How do organizations design their organizational/administrative infrastructure to address customers?
4. How do the organizations design their technological infrastructure to address customers?

Portals - What is the role of portals?
5. What portal models are appropriate for addressing customers?
6. What customer attributes affect portal strategies?
7. How do organizations use portals to respond to particular customers?