ABSTRACT
Several disciplines have generated research and theory that provide insight for managing relations between designers and users in developing new technology. The list grows signifi cantly shorter, however, when the aim is, as for us here in this chapter, to fi nd frameworks that would provide integrative yet also usefully nuanced insight on matters comprising developer-user relations. The inquiry into the integrative theories of developer-user relations is organized as follows. We fi rst examine two long-standing strands of research, which specifi cally focus on the engagement of users in innovation: “participatory design movement” and “user-innovation research.” Both these strands of research are key to understanding the users’ direct involvement and innovativeness in technology development, yet they remain somewhat narrow for the scope of issues the present volume is concerned with. We hence turn to B.-Å. Lundvall’s “learning economy,” which is a commonly used point of departure in innovation studies and policy. While we broadly agree with the learning economy’s ideas, we come to fi nd Lundvall’s framework paradoxical; it raises interaction and learning between producers and users to the fore, yet fails to address the substantial variations and dynamics in how these play out. To address these key issues we turn to the social learning in technological innovation (SLTI) framework, which addresses these matters more fully. At the end we spell out an agenda how the present volume seeks to take the SLTI further.
