The Inextricable Intertwining of the Firm, the Platform and the Customer: the Case of a Social Media Platform for Innovation

The aim of this article is to explore the relationship between human actors and technology in the context of a social media platform, developed by a leading Italian firm in the food industry. In order to address these issues, we adopt a theoretical approach that is deeply rooted in Pickering's “mangle” theory, and Jones' subsequent metaphor of “double dance of agency”. We developed a longitudinal case study with two rounds of interviews with mar-keting and R&D managers. The paper provides three main theoretical contri-butions. It provides detailed attention to the co-evolution over time of hu-man-material entanglement, an aspect that papers in this area often omit. It provides a clear picture of a series of inter-related emergent phenomena, en-tangling managers, users, and the social media platform. It introduces fur-ther dimensions in the dancing metaphor. On the practical side, the double dance of agency perspective on this platform's evolution also offers useful insight for practitioners