'Magic Wand': Mobile Phones and Fujian Entrepreneurs in China

Mei Wu and Haiyun Lin
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Mei Wu: University of Macau, Macau
Haiyun Lin: University of Macau, Macau

International Journal of Sociotechnology and Knowledge Development (IJSKD), 2009, vol. 1, issue 4, 37-51

Abstract: Mobile telephony was first adopted by business people, specifically small and medium-sized entrepreneurs. Their use habits have thus contributed to the evolvement of the mobile and change in business practice. However, there are limited studies that examine individual business users, even fewer exploring the social roles of mobile phones for Chinese entrepreneurship. This study, applying social shaping of technology complemented with affordance theory and domestication theory, qualitatively analyses implications of the mobile phone constructed by entrepreneurs in Fujian Province, China. Findings indicate that mobile telephony has significantly transformed business practice of time and space by Fujian entrepreneurs. It changes time constraints by enabling a 24-hour business contact. It affects the spatial location with a ‘mobile office’. It becomes a platform for staging a tricky business performance. It interconnects business and private lives. Consequently it becomes the ‘magic wand’ -- the central axis around which the lives of Fujian entrepreneurs revolve.

Date: 2009
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