| The purpose of this qualitative grounded theory study was to explore why government customer perceptions of attributes, exhibited in defense contractor websites such as trust, were not effective in marketing efforts directed toward obtaining government contracts. In the highly competitive government marketplace defense contractors whose websites are ineffective in creating active trust or website credibility risk the loss of millions of dollars in revenue and the loss of business teaming opportunities with other defense contractors. The website as it relates to defense contractors seeking government contract awards has not been fully explored. In this study 17 semi-structured, interviews were conducted with government contracting officers, customers, and business executives across the United States. Participants were identified during U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) themed conferences, and from business contacts established during the researcher's career. Using grounded theory analysis, four themes emerged; market research, company capabilities, company performance factors, and information from the data to provide important elements in determining how the behavior of the government customer was impacted by active trust or website credibility in professional engineering service company websites. The most effective use of the professional engineering service company website all participants stated was the conduct of market research. By including company capabilities, ease of navigation, past performance, leadership biographies, current and past customers, combined with human contact, before or after website viewing, the professional engineering service company website provided optimized marketing efforts to reach other professional engineering service companies but little optimization to reach the broader market of government customers. Theory based on grounded theory analysis, indicated websites of professional engineering service companies, unlike e-commerce websites, was most effective in creating active trust when specific company capability elements evident in the website were combined with human trust relationships or word-of-mouth reference. Recommendations for future research indicate there is more to understand regarding the marketing medium that would best optimize website usage for professional engineering service companies, how the development of human relationships with government or business professionals would affect perceived website information, and to what extent a website design could be optimized for information presentation to the government customer. |
