Marlot Kuiper

68 Connective Routines These are the performative aspects. In other words, the ostensive dimension is the idea, the performative dimension is the behaviour. I refer to ostensive aspects and performances in the plural, since multiplicity in the performative aspects refers to the variation in enactment of the routine, thus differences in the specific performances of the routine (Cohen, 2007; Feldman & Pentland, 2003; Pentland & Feldman, 2005), while multiplicity in the ostensive aspects refers to differences in the abstract ideas that guide actions (Feldman, 2015; Turner & Rindova, 2012). These differences can for example arise from differences in roles (D’Adderio, 2011; Pentland & Feldman, 2005), points of view (Dionysiou & Tsoukas, 2013; Feldman, 2003), or tasks (Salvato, 2009). Participants can thus hold different ostensive understandings. Besides ostensive and performative aspects, Feldman and Pentland (2003) identified artefacts as the visible, tangible aspects that enable or constrain elements of routines. Artefacts can take on various different forms, such as written text, furniture or the physical setting. Many artefacts though, are physical representations of a certain rule - such as a checklist - to steer a routine. Defining routines as “recognizable, repetitive patterns of interdependent action carried out by multiple actors” meant a breakthrough in thinking about routines since it inhibits the key idea that routines emerge through their own enactment and in relation to other practices. The idea is that because people repetitively perform routines, these performances inevitably produce new performances, and from time to time also new patterns of performances (Feldman & Orlikowski, 2011; Feldman et al., 2016). For example, patient discussions or radiology meetings structure interactions among professionals, often in ways that are taken-for-granted. At the same time, it is in these interactions – thus practice – that the patient discussions or radiology meetings are reproduced and potentially changed over time. This duality of structure and agency refers to the fact that while structure shapes people’s interactions —practice— in organisations, these structures are produced and reproduced in the same everyday interactions between organisational members (Sherer & Spillane, 2011). This conceptualization of routines as dynamic systems – rather than static entities – also implies that artefacts (no matter how carefully designed) not automatically generate the prescribed patterns of action (Pentland and Feldman 2008). For example, with the introduction of new standards the ‘implementers’ design the artefact to model the ostensive aspect of the routine, and shape the