Work

Applying Bourdieu to socio-technical systems: The importance of affordances for social translucence in building 'capital' and status to eBay's success

Year: 2008

Type: book

Abstract: This paper introduces the work of Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu and his concepts of ‘the field’ and ‘capital’ in relation to eBay. This paper considers eBay to be a socio-technical system with its own set of social norms, rules and competition over ‘capital’. eBay is used as a case study of the importance of using a Bourdieuean approach to create successful socio-technical systems.Using a two-year qualitative study of eBay users as empirical illustration, this paper argues that a large part of eBay’s success is in the social and cultural affordances for social translucence and navigation of eBay’s website - in supporting the Bourdieuean competition over capital and status. This exploration has implications for wider socio-technical systems design which this paper will discuss - in particular, the importance of creating socially \ntranslucent and navigable systems, informed by Bourdieu’s theoretical insights, which support competition for ‘capital’ and status.

Source: Open Access at Essex (University of Essex)

Author: Rebecca Ellis

Institution: University of Essex

Language: English

Topic: Information Systems Theories and Implementation

Subfield: Management Information Systems

Field: Business, Management and Accounting

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funder: Economic and Social Research Council

Award: G841499813

OpenAlex ID: W572347012