Driving a Shopping Cart from STS to Business, and the Other Way Round: On the Introduction of Shopping Carts in American Grocery Stores (1936-1959)

This paper proposes to address the 'does STS mean business' debate by telling the weird empirical story of the introduction of shopping carts in American grocery stores from their early beginnings in 1936 to their ubiquitous presence by the end of the 1950s, based on a systematic reading of the trade journal Progressive Grocer over the period. Through this story, the author intends to show that 'business studies' may benefit from an STS-derived symmetrical look at market actors and their objects based on an 'archaeology of present times'. In stressing the ambiguities of the case, he also argues that STS should study contemporary flexible forms of organizing.