Wakenshaw, Susan Y. L., Venters, Will, Ng, Irene C. L. and Lloyd, Ashley D. (2013) Sense-making of consumer wellbeing in information technology-enabled services from a relational ontology position. Working Paper. Coventry: Warwick Manufacturing Group. WMG Service Systems Research Group Working Paper Series (Number 02/13).

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Abstract

Information technology (IT) built into products and services have become the key drivers for service innovation. How information technology-enabled services (ITESs) affect consumer wellbeing has increasingly become a concern to service scholars. In response to this, transformative service research (TSR) has emerged as a new stream in service research. This paper investigates consumer wellbeing derived from the consumption of ITESs in consumers’ daily lives. A mixed-method approach was employed in our study, including self-reflective reports, in-depth interviews and visual artistic methods. We demonstrated that a relational ontology, drawing on the ‘focal things’ concept (Borgmann, 1984) and sociomateriality (Orlikowski, 2009), could be used as a lens for us to understand consumer wellbeing in ITESs. We used four vignettes to demonstrate how relational ontology can enhance our understanding of consumer wellbeing in ITESs. Theoretically, this paper contributes to TSR by proposing and demonstrating the need to shift or at least extend the extant predominant technology ontology in marketing literature to make sense of consumer experiences and wellbeing in ITESs. In practice, this research encourages ITESs designers to emphasise the relational entanglement of technology with consumer routine practices in their service innovations for the purposes of consumer wellbeing.

Item Type:	Working or Discussion Paper (Working Paper)
Subjects:	T Technology > T Technology (General) T Technology > TL Motor vehicles. Aeronautics. Astronautics
Divisions:	Faculty of Science > WMG (Formerly the Warwick Manufacturing Group)
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Manufacturing industries -- Great Britain, Production planning -- Great Britain, Consumers -- Great Britain, Information technology -- Great Britain, Technology , Design and technology -- Great Britain
Series Name:	WMG Service Systems Research Group Working Paper Series
Publisher:	Warwick Manufacturing Group
Place of Publication:	Coventry
ISSN:	2049-4297
Official Date:	2013
Dates:	Date Event 2013 Available
Number:	Number 02/13
Institution:	University of Warwick
Status:	Not Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	Published
Access rights to Published version:	Open Access
Funder:	Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
Grant number:	EP/J021601/1

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