Digital ecosystem and consumer engagement: A socio-technical perspective

Abstract

This paper develops a technology-centric perspective on consumer engagement in the digital ecosystem. Focusing on engagement with brands on social media-based brand communities, the study argues that consumer engagement is a socio-technical phenomenon that emerges from consumer action with digital technology, where the action and the technology are cocontistutive of engagement practice and subject to continuous and mutually recursive change. The empirical findings explore how consumers engage in the digital ecosystem through actions with physical devices, digital haptics, and platforms. The findings highlight how the digital materiality of the engagement ecosystem generates new kinds of engagement practices including uncovering, appropriating, and cultivating. The study advances current thinking on engagement by offering a holistic view of engagement practice that encompasses multiple technologies whilst rejecting technological mediation. This paper offers original theoretical insights into the status of digital technologies in consumer engagement, setting new directions for the future research on engagement.

Exploring the dark and unexpected sides of digitalization: Toward a critical agenda

“…Digitalization also enables businesses to develop new markets and business models, helps firms to expand the scope of their activities, and can enable organizations to become internally more efficient (e.g., Adner et al, 2019; Schildt, 2017). Mainstream research further underlines the benefit of collecting and analyzing data for corporate gains by leveraging data to enhance consumer experiences and to predict not only consumption patterns (Morgan-Thomas et al, 2020) but behavioral patterns in general.…”

Eudaimonia: The sociocultural value of consumers’ social labor

“…In so doing, platforms and third parties exploit consumers. From the socio-technical systems approach (Morgan-Thomas et al, 2020), social media assemble contents (e.g. YouTube videos or blog posts), practices, and relations and give value to these assemblages in terms of likes, accessibility, availability, presence, authenticity, connectedness, and intimacy (Raun, 2018) to be further commoditized and monetized (Brydges and Sjoüholm, 2019; Postigo, 2016).…”

Emoções e redes colaborativas na resiliência informacional

“…Tais questões são apenas uma referência à pesquisa empírica. Sem dúvidas, podem ser alargadas ou aprofundadas conforme a situação, considerando, empiricamente, as diferentes materialidades -relacionadas ao ecossistema digital -que co-constituem as práticas, a exemplo de dispositivos, plataformas, algoritmos, entre outras (MORGAN-THOMAS et al, 2020). Destaca-se, aqui, a perspectiva teórica de Collins (2004) como um recurso teórico-metodológico apropriado para essas questões socioemocionais.…”

“…Decorre de rupturas das bases informacionais e depende do enfrentamento das barreiras estruturais e pessoais emergentes, as quais tendem a dificultar a (re) construção das bases rompidas (LLOYD, 2015). Somadas a essas barreiras, outras complexidades problematizam as experiências transitórias, como a virtualização da vida contemporânea (SODRÉ, 2013), a reboque das práticas sociotécnicas (MORGAN-THOMAS et al, 2020), que, além de fragmentarem a informação, ampliam a diáspora digital 2 .…”