No good deed goes un-scripted: An Ethnographic Study on the Sustainable Smartphone Application Karma

Abstract: Noting a need for a closer understanding of the discrepancy between the actions that sustainable smartphone applications encourage and the actions that the users perform, this thesis explores the implications for sustainable consumption practices. This thesis takes a sociological approach to markets, focusing on three key concepts (market devices, socio-technical scripts, qualification) to answer two questions: 1) how consumer actions are promoted and enabled in the popular consumer food-waste management application Karma; and 2) how consumers translate the actions that the application promotes. To answer these questions, an ethnographic method was applied: the content of the Karma application was observed, and interviews with 10 Swedish users of the application was conducted. The results show that digital devices are highly complex in changing consumer practices, as the way in which consumers translate actions depends on their routines and preferences in the context of food-shopping, but also how they react to their own actions. To describe this phenomenon, this thesis suggests that consumers engage in a “post-script assessment” of their own actions, which can serve to both reinforce and disrupt sustainable consumer actions. Managers are encouraged to take this phenomenon into account when promoting and enabling consumer actions through digital devices.