Kushagra Bhatnagar is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Aalto University School of Business, Finland. Kushagra’s research interests lie at the intersection of marketing and organization studies. Key research projects include building a sociological understanding of service work, understanding how consumers navigate vulnerability, and recently, how they navigate ‘smart’ technology, and highlighting how the creator economy reconfigures legacy markets. He is primarily a qualitative/interpretive researcher. His work has been published in journals such as the Journal of Consumer Research, Organization Studies and the Journal of Business Ethics. Before entering academia, Kushagra worked as a brand strategist and consultant, leveraging cultural studies and cultural branding approaches to solve marketing challenges. He has recently been recognized as Aalto University School of Business’ Researcher of the Year 2023-24.
Aalto University School of Business, Finland
December 03, 2024
Of Disciples and Heretics: Understanding authority dynamics in processes of self- quantification.
This research investigates how consumers relate to smart tracking devices and apps in their self-quantification and optimization efforts. We foreground the discrepancy between smart self-tracking technologies (SSTs) promises to empower consumers and to emancipate them from paternalistic authority wielded by medical experts, and consumers’ lived experiences. SSTs evangelize new (mystical) metrics, canonize a god’s eye view on consumers’ health and well-being, and prophecize specific well-being outcomes. We theorize this process as being subjected to prophetic authority. To maximize the benefits from SSTs, consumers need to put their faith into the device’s recommendations and its underlying metrics. We then showcase how consumers either renounce or renew their faith in SSTs through harmonic or discordant epiphanic events. We contribute to the literature on ‘smart’ technology and on the dynamics of authority in human-computer interactions.
