ANTECEDENTES NORMATIVOS

Table 5.1: Sample characteristics

Panel A: Principal areas of activity

Operates on the fringe of the public sector Operates in a specific area of activity Responds to crises Total Sample size 21 73 10 104

Number of charities with a websitea _{19 71 10 100}

Percentage of charities with a website 90% 97% 100% 96%

Panel B: Financial characteristicsb

Income (£m) Expenditure (£m) Minimum 47.1 43.8 Maximum 526.2 528.1 Mean 113.0 107.3 Standard deviation 101.6 109.9 Notes

a Of the four charities that did not have a website, two provided an annual report and two did not.

b The financial information was obtained from www.CharitiesDirect.com. Details of surplus/deficit levels were not available.

Table 5.2: Website presentation and usability: site designa Strongly

disagree Disagree Undecided Agree Strongly agree

Easy to navigate – 1 1 59 39

Layout and organisation makes sense to the user – 2 1 64 33

Straightforward headlines and page titles that

clearly explain the content 1 3 2 55 39

User able to navigate around site from ‘current’

page without having to go ‘back’ or ‘home’ 2 5 1 35 57

Information clearly provided for different

stakeholder groups 2 4 – 54 40

Yes No

Internal ‘search’ option available on each page 87 13 Contact details/link clearly visible from home page 100 0

Note

a The number of charities to whom the category applies is equivalent to the percentage of charities, as there were 100 charities with websites.

Comparing the website practices of charities with those of private and public sector organisations, Xiao et al. (2002) report that only 23.3% of the Chinese companies surveyed had an internal search page. In addition, in relation to contact details, the authors report that 46% at best provided contact details in terms of an email address, phone number or postal address for their Investor Relations Department. Pina et al. (2007), however, when examining local government contact/reachability practices, report higher levels (94% and 66%) of postal contact details and email links to senior officials. Overall, UK charitable practices are at par with those of public sector organisations and have excelled those of private Chinese organisations, although time differences, organisational size and culture may have played a role.

In relation to page design (Table 5.3), the majority of websites surveyed included information that was

considered to be of interest to users, and this information was presented in a logical and organised fashion to suit individual stakeholder groups. Moreover, in most cases (90%), the information was presented in a succinct manner, with hypertext used to split otherwise lengthy documents into smaller units (88%). These charities also generally used appropriate titles and subtitles, with words and phrases in italics and bold to enhance the page ‘scan-ability’ for users. While half the sample organisations relied on conventional textual measures to communicate with their stakeholders, the other half supplemented their textual material with graphical material, such as pictures and graphs, to create visually more attractive pages and/or enhance the messages in their textual disclosures. Taking advantage of more recent and innovative developments, 20 organisations also used audio material on their websites and 35 presented video material.

The results suggest high standards of practice that are at least comparable with those in the corporate and public sectors. For example, in relation to New Zealand

companies, Fisher et al. (2004) reported that a smaller proportion (63%) used hyperlinks to enable easier navigation. In addition, in relation to graphics and audio/ video materials, while charity standards were higher than those of Chinese firms (which recorded levels of 16% and 0.5% for graphics and audio/visual materials respectively (Xiao et al. 2002) and government (with 8% use of audio/ visual materials (Pina et al. 2007), they were lower than those of New Zealand companies, of which 81% used graphics, audio and video material in total. The use of audio and video material may have been popular among charitable organisations as it captures their activities, and is likely to attract both beneficiary and contributor groups by acknowledging the recognition of the problem/issue and the charity’s activities and intentions to resolve it.

Torres et al. (2006) who examined e-government, albeit using a different mix of Internet items to assess usability, to take consideration of the government-specific aspects, gave the organisations an overall percentage score of 50%. Although the present research does not score charities’ practices, the frequency of ‘agreement’ levels and ‘high agreement’ levels recorded for specific website and web page attributes for the sample organisations indicates high standards in practice. As might be expected, however, there is clear scope for a minority of charities to improve their practices.

5.4 DiSCHARGiNG ACCOUNTABiLiTy: WEBSiTE CONTENT

Examining the role of the websites to discharge charity accountability to external stakeholders, 68% of the charities surveyed uploaded their annual report onto their website and 49% uploaded their annual reviews (Table 5.4, Panel A). Given the mandatory nature of the annual report, the former result indicates that while a significant

proportion of charities sought to discharge accounting and accountability information through their websites, a sizeable proportion chose not to use their website for this purpose. Similarly, although a significant number of organisations provided an annual review online, not all charities that produced an annual review (and who supplied this research with a copy) did so. In addition, 65 charities provided an online version of a signed copy of the auditors’ report and 24 provided ‘other’ financial

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