摘要：The last decades have witnessed a significant shift in the orientation towards users in
management, design, and innovation research. ¡°Science discovers, technology applies, man
conforms,¡± the motto of the 1933 Chicago World Fair, was for long the received view on the
design¨Cuse relationship. The linear model of innovation was the norm in textbooks up until
the 1980s. Its legacy is still strong. Tens of thousands of large marketing departments in both
corporations and universities churn out technologies and research on technologies. In
contrast, only a few hundred programs explore what happens with technology after it is
purchased and how those events translate back to production. A further twist in this
imbalance is that, by far, the most common social science approach to technology focuses on
¡°technology diffusion.¡± Here, technology is expected to be diffused as is, and the main
research methods, such as the diffusion surveys, were until the late 1980s structured so that
the practices of using¡ªthat is, the local variations and modifications¡ªdo not easily come to
the fore (Rogers, 1995).
