Measurement in action: an activity-theoretical perspective on producer-user interaction

This paper examines a critical phase in the life-span of a technological innovation: the transfer of a new medical technology from developers to users. This transitional or transformational phase of the innovation is critical, for instance, when the use of a product is not yet institutionalized in the target communities. Such phases, typically presupposing collaborative performance between otherwise loosely connected actors and activity systems, emerge especially in the early phases of implementation and diffusion prior to the stabilization and expansion of user networks. These transitional processes between design and implementation are critical and constitutive to entry on diffusion path and market creation (Green, 1992). Within and through this gray area, the product is for the first time literally transferred from the hands of the developers to the hands of the users.