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Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are reshaping many industries, often by reshaping how information is shared. However, while the effects and uses of ICT are often associated with organizations (and industries), their use occurs at the individual level. To explore the relationships between individual uses of ICT and changes to organization and industry structures, we examined the residential real estate industry. As agents, buyers and sellers increase their uses of ICT, they also change how they approach their daily work. The increasing uses of ICT are simultaneously altering industry structures by subverting some of the realtors’ control over information while also reinforcing the existing contract‐based structures. This structurational perspective and our findings help to explain why information intermediaries persist when technology‐based perspectives would suggest their disappearance.

Characterizations of users’ experiences on the Web are beginning to appear. Recently released research suggests that Internet use may reduce psychological well‐being, for instance by increasing loneliness and depression. Our current study implies that using the Internet may provoke enjoyable experiences through the flow state, which may in turn positively influence an individual’s subjective well‐being and improve a person’s happiness, life satisfaction, and positive affect. By surveying 304 Web users through an open‐ended questionnaire, this study captures a picture of Web users’ flow experiences regarding their optimal situations on the Web. Results suggest that using the World Wide Web is an activity that facilitates flow, which generates an optimal, extremely enjoyable experience with total involvement and concentration. Symptoms and dimensions of flow states on the Web are reported directly from subjects’ responses, such as merging of action and awareness, a loss of self‐consciousness, the sense of time distortion, enjoyment, and telepresence.

The impact of e‐business on export management companies (EMCs) has been debated for some time and several reasons for their survival have been forwarded. Based upon the resource‐based perspective of the firm, this study provides a far more fundamental reason for the survival of the well‐established EMCs‐their market‐based assets. Furthermore, this study analyzes the impact of e‐business proliferation on the well‐established EMCs transaction creating and physical fulfillment exporting services and their efficiency and effectiveness.

A growing movement toward public access to the federal government via the Internet has created increased interest in establishing network communications and information services, especially among national officeholders. However, little empirical study of the use and users of such services exists to guide their efforts This paper reports results of a two‐part study of the use and users of US Representative Sam Coppersmith′s (D – Arizona 1) Gopher and distribution list services during the first quarter of 1994. The first part analyzes Gopher usage data gathered during the study period. The second part detials with a user survey distributed to fifty‐seven Gopher server guest registrants and eighty listserv subscribers just after the end of the study period. The research shows that (1) use of the Gopher subdirectory dwarfs that of the listserv, (2) services like Coppersmith′s should provide basic information, as well as unique and timely information and issue position statements, (3) assessment of such services is methodologically challenging, and (4) Coppersmith′s services are effective information media that promote observability of distant officeholders, a function that helps promote increased participation in government.