Towards a Framework of the Performance Evaluation of Smes' Industry Portals

Purpose – With the fast growth of the internet, thedevelopment of industry portals for SMEs is becoming an increasingly importantissue of economic growth. However, designing and developing efficient portalsis not easy, and how to evaluate industry portals' performance has not yet beenconvincingly demonstrated. To address this gap, this paper aims to propose aframework. Design/methodology/approach – The framework uses the analytic hierarchicalprocess and incorporates both experts' and users' judgments into theperformance evaluation process. It also employs three different objectives forperformance evaluation including data quality, technology acceptance, andknowledge distribution. An exemplary case is given to demonstrate the proposedframework by empirically assessing an industry portal project, developed bySmall and Medium Enterprise Administration, Ministry of Economic Affairs,Taiwan. Findings – The proposed framework can enable industry associations to becomemore familiar with the nature and scope of portal performance evaluation. Originality/value – Develops a framework which addresses the practicalaspect of portal evaluation in terms of multiple objectives and involvement.(Publisher's Abstract)