Flytande identitet

Sammanfattning: In June 2004, a curious story appeared in the Swedish business press. One could read that ecommerce had "recovered" and was "taking revenge". A few years earlier the media spoke of nothing but the dotcom-burst, broken expectations and bankruptcies. It seemed that by 2004, ecommerce was established in its own right as a retail form. One of the companies mentioned in the articles was called NetOnNet. The purpose of this study was to describe the emergence of ecommerce in Swedish retailing through a history of NetOnNet, thereby contributing to a better understanding of changes in retail. Assuming that it is particularly interesting to study change in retail by studying the emergence of a retail form in an early stage, the starting theoretical point for the study was McNair's now fifty year old version of the so called wheel of retailing. The study took a constructivist perspective and uses the actor-network theory approach. Particular attention was paid to the classification of retail forms, the establishment of retail form characteristics and retail change periodization. The boundaries between retail forms were fluid, but the classification of retail forms was an important element in the change efforts. The emergence of e-commerce also simultaneously included a re-classification of other forms of retail. This shows that retail forms are constantly constructed and reconstructed. This means that an a priori classification of retail forms precedes a study of change, important aspects of the change process may be absent from analysis. Also the characteristics of retail forms were fluid. There were considerable conflicts regarding the characteristics of retail forms especially relating to price. This is an illustration of the difficulties of a priori deciding retail form characteristics, as these characteristics are temporary results of the change process. Even the periodization was fluid. Periods, phases and stages indicated by theories of retail change (such as introduction, growth or maturity) were continuously referred to, but for different purposes. The change process can best be described as recursive activities of translation and classification, which are preceded or followed by new periodizations. The notion of fluid identity, as exemplified by NetOnNet, reveals a continuous construction and reconstruction of multiple, changeable identities supported by efforts to establish continuity and uniformity through time and space. Fluid identity was possible due to the recursive interplay of differentiation and identification by means of translation and classification.