Living with PAUL – Use Processes and the Design of AAL Solutions

Abstract

Use processes are under-researched in marketing theory. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the research on this topic in marketing. The main part of the paper is devoted to the description of an empirical sociological field study on the use of an Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) technology. For the description and the analysis of the sociological project, we draw on service-dominant logic for marketing. We evaluate how the users of a complex AAL system managed to integrate the AAL technology with their own resources. The research presented in this paper could also be understood as a study on the preconditions of market making. It shows how solutions can be created in a sensitive field that is of both individual and societal importance. “We argue that value is fundamentally derived and determined in use – the integration and application of resources in a specific context rather than in exchange – embedded in firm output and captured by price” (Vargo, S. L. et al., 2008, p. 145).