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By enabling users to digitally monitor their health and behaviour, wearable technologies foster the perspective of the quantified self, a cultural phenomenon emphasising personal improvement through self-tracking. This vision, in turn, provides a basis for new forms of social engagement. In this netnographic study, we explore a brand community for users of the Fitbit wearable device. Our analysis reveals two structural dynamics – material agency and quantitative anchoring – which create a foundation for what we label 'accidental transhumanism', a transitional movement towards a transhumanist vision based on self-quantification, self-extension, and integration with technology. We further highlight the social engagement mechanisms, including motivating empowerment, friendly rivalry, and trusting engagement, that are built upon this foundation. Leveraging these findings, we theorise a novel model of the interaction of consumers and system artefacts in socio-technical assemblages. We refer to this novel phenomenon of brand community centred on self-quantification as quantified self-in-community, and consider both the beneficial and potentially deleterious impacts that it presents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marketing organizations should adapt to the changes in consumer attitudes brought by the social, political and economic conditions in postmodern age. Postmodern era consumers are influenced by external forces and basic needs, thus marketing practices should be aimed at enhancing consumer loyalty. Furthermore, organizations should view products as processes and consumers as producers since the selection of products and services has become a tool to project their individual image.

Research on consumer behavior has begun to consider the role of the human body as the site of social symbols and representation. Marketers have thus begun to focus on the body as a means of heightening consumer consumption by highlighting the various meanings placed on the human body. Feminist discourse and postmodern analysis have been responsible for questioning the dualistic assumptions based on the body and have raised the issues of gender biases on male and female bodies.

Postmodernism has emerged as a new analytic tool in which relationships between subjects and objects are decribed. Postmodernism seeks to situate individuals in society by characterizing as being uncontrolled by tradition and subsequently subject to a plurality of beliefs and desires. A number of marketing analysts have begun to incorporate postmodern analysis into their practice by questioning the discourse existing in economic phenomena.

The influence of information technology on the performance of supplemental work at home is studied. Supplemental work involvesemployees doing job-related tasks at home during the evenings and on weekends. Determinants of supplemental work behavior, which include organization/work, information technology and household factors, were analyzed and an empirical study was performed using information from 346 computer owners and 104 non-owners. Results show that computer owners have twice as much supplemental work hours per week compared to non-owers. The performance of supplemental workis positively related to work self-determination variables, work portability, the existence of telecommunications links between the office and home and household income, while negatively related to commuting time and the presence of children at home.