Alternative Measures of Performance For E-Companies: A Comparison of Approaches

Abstract

Understanding firm performance is as important in the new economy as it wasin the old one. It seems difficult, however, to make a judgment about whichmeasures of performance are good predictors of future success for e-companies.This paper contrasts indicators of asset productivity, shareholder value, growth,survival, and cyberspace usage, exploring how these different indicators reflectperformance for a sample of e-companies, and compares them with a sample ofbrick-and-mortars competing in the same industries. Results suggest that multipleindicators are more necessary than ever to capture the variability of outcomesin the Internet economy.