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The electronic markets hypothesis holds that information technology use influences the dismantling of vertical firm boundaries because of reductions in the cost of transactions between firms. Anecdotal evidence of merger and alliance activity for information goods producing firms seems to be at odds with these predictions of an IT-driven rise in vertical market coordination structures. An intersection of transactions cost economics with information economics yields a research model that may more thoroughly explain and predict vertical and horizontal boundary change behavior for information goods producing firms. The model separates the economic effects of a firm’s use of information technology on the internal governance of the production and distribution sequence (vertical organizational boundaries), from the economic effects of the degree of information in the firm’s product line on internal governance and …