Economic Analysis of Knowledge: The History of Thought and the Central Themes

Following the development of knowledge economies, there has been a rapid expansion of economic analysis of knowledge, both in the context of technological knowledge in particular and the decision theory in general. This paper surveys this literature by identifying the main themes and contributions and outlines the future prospects of the discipline. The wide scope of knowledge related questions in terms of applicability and alternative approaches has led to the fragmentation of research. Nevertheless, one can identify a continuing tradition which analyses various aspects of the generation, dissemination and use of knowledge in the economy

From dishwashing to dishwasher cooking: on social positioning and how users are drawn towards alternative uses of existing technology

Drawing on social positioning theory and using dishwasher cooking as our running example, we examine how users arrive at alternative uses of already existing technological objects or what we will call “user innovations in function”. The first half of the paper provides an abstract account of three forms of structure: social structure, especially as represented by social positions; structures of cognition and action; and the structure of technological objects. The second half theorizes user innovations in function as emerging at the nexus of these different forms of structure, with a view to highlighting (1) the pre-reflective and reflective modes of agency involved; (2) how these relate to what we call “tinkering” and “reflection” in user innovation; and (3) the difference between “local” and “non-local” user innovations in function and their possible roots in tinkering or reflection.Ivano Cardinale would like to acknowledge the research funding provided by the Independent Social Research Foundation’s Political Economy Research Fellowship