Introduction

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The Internet is having an enormous impact on culture, society, and business. The Internet is drawing consumers in search of information about a broad range of topics. In terms of purchase and consumption decisions, Internet users are becoming empowered consumers armed with more complete information than previous generations, and, in the process, are forming virtual communities offering information about a broad range of topics, ranging from pop culture to gardening to academic issues to health care. However, as numerous failures of dot-com organizations have illustrated, the Internet has not fully lived up to its much-hyped promise. Organizations are refining old business models and creating new business models to achieve success in this new virtual realm. In order to understand how end users ^[3] search for and benefit from Internet information search, this chapter presents a set of hypotheses and an explanatory model concerning web-based information search behavior. Of particular interest is how end users are locating and utilizing information. Ultimately, what are the implications of end user Internet search for providers of information online?

An area of particular interest where the Internet has not been as successful as expected is in the field of health care. Recently, pundits have speculated how information available via the Internet would empower patients, involve them more in the care of their health, and have fundamental impacts on the patient-physician relationship (Friedewald, 2000). However, recent reports state that in the health care area the Internet is not living up to the hype. This runs from patient apathy (Wilkins & Navarro, 2001) to the dissemination of potentially bad information (Webster, 2001). Therefore, the proposed model is tested in the patient health information domain. Correspondingly, the operationalizations of the model constructs are contextually specific to the health information area. Hence, the tested model is constrained to look at characteristics unique to health information search.

^[3]In the context of health care information search, this chapter will use the terms "user," "end user," "patient," and "consumer" interchangeably, though the terms typically define slightly different constructs.

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