Using Dialogic Principles on Websites

• Published date: 01 December 2017
• Date: 01 December 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/nml.21278

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N M  L, vol. 28, no. 2, Winter 2017 © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/nml.21278

Journal sponsored by the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Case Western Reserve University.

Correspondence to: Piotr Szamrowski, University of Warmia and Mazury, Faculty of Organization and Management,

10-719 Olsztyn Oczapowskiego 2, Olsztyn, 10-728, Poland. E-mail: peters6@wp.pl.

Research Note

Using Dialogic Principles on Websites

HOW PUBLIC BENEFIT ORGANIZATIONS ARE BUILDING

RELATIONSHIPS WITH THEIR PUBLIC

Marian Olinski, Piotr Szamrowski

University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn , Poland

This research reports the results of the analysis of public benefit organization (PBO) web-

sites as places for encouraging dialogic relationships with key members of the public. Using

a modified Kent and Taylor ’ s ( 1998 ) dialogic principle, we conducted a content analysis of

367 PBOs in Poland. The results suggest that analyzed organizations only marginally use

the five principles of dialogic communication on their websites. The studies have identi-

fied only a few organizations, which have websites characterized as having a high level

of dialogic potential. Websites usually contained only some elements, which gave them the

appearance of a digital information brochure. In addition, the results indicate that website

dialogic potential is significantly influenced by the amount of revenue and the extent of the

organization. The higher the revenue and geographic service area, the greater the dialogic

potential of websites is as well.

Keywords: information managament , Internet , nonprofit management

NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS, AS opposed to the private (business) and public sec-

tor (government, public administration) account for an important element of modern

democracy and civil society. Since 2000, the number of nonprofi ts in Poland has gradually

increased, especially those that have the status of public benefi t organizations (PBOs).  eir

numbers have increased almost fourfold since 2004, from a level of 2,200 organizations to a

level of more than 8,000 organizations

1 (in the listing of PBOs as of January 1, 2015, there

were 8,018 organizations).

2 For the nonprofi t organization, the end of the twentieth century

meant signifi cant changes in the fi eld of communications.  e advent of the Internet in the

early 1990s revolutionized the mechanism of communication, significantly affecting the

functioning of entire societies.  e Internet seems to be a particularly useful tool for non-

profi t organizations.  e World Wide Web off ers these organizations the unique opportunity

to interactively reach multiple segments of the public without enormous fi nancial burdens.

Despite the obvious advantages of the Internet, numerous studies (e.g., Gordon and Benhof

2009 ; Hinson, Van Zyl, and Agbleze 2013 ; Ingenhoff and Koelling 2009 ; Kent, Taylor, and

White 2003 ; McAllister and Taylor 2007 ; Naudé, Froneman, and Atwood 2004 ) indicate

that the dialogic potential of both profi t and nonprofi t websites are used only to a small