Abstract

This paper investigates an individual’s subjective interpretation of a situation of technological change. It shows how various group and role identities operate simultaneously within the individual, influencing reactions through normative or structural bias, and contrastingly, how in parallel personal identity provides choice in the enactment of individual innovative behaviour. It is argued that the component that dominates is dependent on an individual’s degree of embedment in the situationally relevant society and its various groups. In order to understand an individual’s balance between the two forces in a situation of technological change, normative as well as individualistic forces matter. Firstly, looking at human action in regards to technological change from a social perspective, social ties represent social and organisational bias that guide behaviour but at the same time demand control, thereby influencing action in the context of technological change. Wheras, focusing on the individual, personal identity raises the importance of individual uniqueness. This paper thus offers a conceptualisation of an individual’s meaning system as a dynamic, psycho-social processing system, and it outlines how this system’s ongoing reconstruction of meaning influences action somewhat differently each time. In the final analysis, this paper links existing pieces of knowledge from various disciplines in a new way, creating a patchwork that explains shared patterns of behaviour in technology acceptance, but it also explains changing individual behaviour in the face of technological change.