Eighteenth International Conference on Technology, Knowledge, and Society

Abstract

This paper uses concepts from posthumanist science and technology studies (STS) to provide a model for researching how employees, customers, and other stakeholders of organisations understand and behave in relation to new technologies. The paper responds to two main calls for action – firstly, to Braidotti (2001)’s call for further creativity in posthumanist approaches to research, and secondly, to Murray (2021)’s call for further research on the interplay between digital technologies and behaviours in the organisation. Providing such an interdisciplinary model for understanding individual experience contributes to digital transformation projects and service design by accounting for the personal understanding, value criteria, feelings associations and practices of users regarding specific technologies in an individual way, without relying on need-based conceptualisations of others given by what is known as expert users. To do this, we extend the concept of figuration as distinguished in STS, showing a mutually influencing relationship between day-to-day practice, technology design, and individual experience. Comparing existing literature on service design and the outcomes of using our model in an empirical setting for data analysis, this paper develops a theoretical reconceptualization of figuration as user research tool, placing it in the context of digital transformation projects using intelligent automation systems. Through the step-by-step model we contribute to the fields of stakeholder management and service design research, claiming that accounting for the representations, value criteria, feelings and associations and behaviours around technology provides a detailed foundation for comprehensive user research in designing intelligent automation systems.