With the advent of the Internet or the World Wide Web, economic entities such as business firms and consumers are converging to the new frontier for economic exchange: Electronic Commerce. Businesses are investing in infrastructure, content and transaction specific relationships paving the way for electronic commerce over the Internet. But the antecedent of any consumer related activities over the Internet requires a fundamental understanding of the "Involvement" construct as related to the Internet. The concept of involvement has played a significant role in explaining consumer behavior in the marketing literature as well as in developing and formulating marketing strategies and policies. In this paper, we focus on developing and validating the "Involvement" construct as related to the Internet from an electronic commerce perspective. Data was collected for this purpose and initial analysis reveals that the construct is likely to be multi-dimensional and each dimension taps into two aspects of Internet Involvement. One representing the aesthetic or fascinating aspect of the Internet such as animations, Java applets, fancy graphics, etc., and the other representing the value creating aspect of the Internet such as easy access to interesting and valuable information, product or service offerings, knowledge enhancements etc. This paper contributes to the literature by investigating a crucial concept underlying many consumer behaviors such as exposure to media, processing of advertising information, response to persuasive messages, word-of-mouth communications about new products or services, etc. in the context of electronic commerce.
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