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This article studies the learning and capability formation of a biotechnology fi rm by analysing its development path, which is composed of successive product development and innovation processes. In collaborative product development work, network collaboration, as well as the acquisition of new competences and learning, evolves simultaneously and interactively. Searching for and encountering partners with complementary knowledge and resources is important in the emergence of new product-development processes. To improve understanding of this path formation, the article draws on cultural-historical activity theory, science and technology studies and the epistemology of things and effects. These all underline the signifi cance of material artefacts for learning and activity. The epistemology of things and effects addresses the knowledge of how things work in experimental systems and products. Enzymes, proteins and instruments are put to work in a stabilized way as parts of new products. The effects so mastered entail the functional qualities that make products competitive in the marketplace. Key Words: competencies; epistemology of things and effects; network collaboration; path formation; product development This article addresses two decades of competence development in a small biotechnology fi rm that produces reagents, enzymes and instruments for genetic engineering and research in the global biotechnology market. Competence development is analysed in terms of the formation of a path consisting of successive product-development projects accomplished by a fi rm with a partner or partners having complementary knowledge and resources. Each process leads

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Summary Objectives: This paper aims to present an activity-theoretical method for studying the effects of user participation in IS development. Methods: This method is developed through a case study of the process of designing a diabetes database. Results and Conclusions: The method consists of a historical analysis of the design process, an ethno-graphical study of the use of the database, and researcher-driven interventions into the on-going user-producer interaction. In the historical analysis, we study particularly which user groups of the database have influenced the design work and which perspectives need to be incorporated into the design in the near future. An analytical model consisting of perspectives on local design, particular technology, and societal domain is introduced as a conceptual tool for this analysis. We also introduce the possibility of employing the historical analysis in guiding an ethno-graphical study of the user sites and researcher-driven interventions, which provide the participants with tools for improving their design process.