In brevity, the aim of Valtteri Kaartemo's Academy of Finland -funded (315604) research project is to increase the understanding of the roles of technology in the reformation of markets. Reformation and shaping of markets is based on the idea that markets do not exist independent of human beings but are constructed and constantly reconstructed as various practices are performed.The research project builds on market shaping literature, service-dominant (S-D) logic, Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and postphenomenological philosophy. 

While Kaartemo considers that market-as-practice and S-D logic provide insightful lenses for understanding how markets are (re)formed and how nonhuman resources and technology partake in the process, he argues that these views still remain human-centric, and are limited by phenomenological research tradition in understanding human behavior and experience. The implicit role of technology in markets is a problem because technology mediates our behavior and interpretation of the world. In the world of robots and autonomous devices scholars need to develop concepts, theories, and philosophical approaches that enable studying more active role of technological artifacts in markets and marketing. Thus, the research project answers the call to refresh marketing with empirically driven post-human (and para-social) theorizing, which nevertheless does not neglect human beings. 

Kaartemo collaborates with marketing scholars, historians, futures researchers, media scholars, and computer scientists to challenge the human-centric research paradigm in marketing. To motivate the need for this project, he argues that the urge for the paradigm shift is acute, as social macro trends, such as automatization and robotization, challenge scholars to view technology in a more active role in markets and marketing.