From dishwashing to dishwasher cooking: on social positioning and how users are drawn towards alternative uses of existing technology

Ivano Cardinale and Jochen Runde

Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2021, vol. 45, issue 4, 613-630

Abstract: Drawing on social positioning theory and using dishwasher cooking as our running example, we examine how users arrive at alternative uses of already-existing technological objects or what we will call ‘user innovations in function’. The first half of the paper provides an abstract account of three forms of structure: social structure, especially as represented by social positions; structures of cognition and action; and the structure of technological objects. The second half theorises user innovations in function as emerging at the nexus of these different forms of structure, with a view to highlighting (i) the pre-reflective and reflective modes of the agency involved; (ii) how these relate to what we call ‘tinkering’ and ‘reflection’ in user innovation; and (iii) the difference between ‘local’ and ‘non-local’ user innovations in function and their possible roots in tinkering or reflection.

Keywords: User innovation; Technology; Social positioning; Social structure; Habitus (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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