We Are All Users Now: People and Organizations Too
E B Swanson
What the paper says
In a recent article, Baskerville and Myers (2023) reconceptualize the concept of the technology user, arguing that in the now digitized world, everyone inhabits it as a user both in their work and in their everyday lives. While this reconceptualization is welcome, it sees only people as users and it is suggested here that this does not go far enough. Organizations too must be seen as users, especially in digital interactions with people by means of systems and platforms, where issues of value, equity and fairness arise, and where people and organizations are both users and in effect used. A framework for bringing people and organizations together in a mutual interactive use (MIU) perspective to address these issues is provided. It is suggested that while organizations with platforms might have the upper hand in their interactions with people in the short run, in the long run there is no permanence to this upper hand. Promising avenues for research that might further illuminate the usefulness of the MIU perspective are identified.
Evidence weight
Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40
| F · citation impact | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
| M · momentum | 0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07 |
| V · venue signal | 0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03 |
| R · text relevance † | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.