The Web Mirrors Value in the Real World – Comparing a Firm’s Valuation with Its Web Network Position

Abstract This paper compares a firm’s innovation and performance with its online Web presence measured through the Web network structure. 489 firms in five different industries listed on the United States and Chinese stock markets are investigated. Using Web link data collected from Bing, blogs, Twitter and Wikipedia, we find positive correlation between betweenness centrality of a firm in the Web network and its innovation capability; and significant correlation between betweenness centrality and financial performance. We also find that Twitter, Wikipedia only predict a firm’s performance in the US, which is not surprising as they are officially blocked in China. Blogs predict better in China than they do in the US, for they might still be the major social media tools for Chinese firms; while for U.S. firms, blogs have been supplemented by Twitter and Wikipedia