Construction of dispositions and development of human activity: a theoretical framework illustrated by the case of a novice manager

Abstract

This article examines how ‘dispositions’ are constructed as vectors and elements in the production and development of human activity by analysing the transformations in the activity of a young manager in her new role as head of distribution in a small publishing firm. The transformations in her activity are revealed by action–disposition articulations: (1) from action to disposition, as she looks for regularity and generality in events and activities; (2) from disposition to action, in her productive actualisations; and (3) the trajectory that gradually emerges from the articulation of these articulations, signalling a development in her activity through appropriation and individuation.

Notes

1. ‘World’ in this sense can also be termed ‘situation’. The term as it is employed here has a different meaning than it does for Muriel: it is a process and not an object, with a situation designating the fact that all action expresses the actor’s point of view about the environment. To avoid confusion, we hereafter differentiate between these two meanings by noting Muriel’s conception of the situation-object as ‘situation^∗’.

2. The interactions are transcribed verbatim; as this corpus is not analysed linguistically, it is presented as a written text, structured to improve readability.