Marlot Kuiper

71 Research Perspective: Professional routines shaping organisational routines to guide the empirical analysis. But to prevent from misunderstandings, it is important to note that where in the broader field of organisation science, artefacts are mostly referred to as “objects, language and acts” (see e.g. the influential work of Yanow, (1996), in the literature on organisational routines, artefacts refer to the material objects (Feldman and Pentland, 2005). ‘Materiality’ here shouldn’t be confused with physicality. Nowadays, organising is increasingly accomplished with the use of software- based digital artefacts. A digital artefact usually cannot be touched and has no physical properties. Still, many researchers suggest that software, intangible though it may be, can be described in terms of its materiality (Hutchby, 2001; Jackson, 1996; Leonardi, 2007; Orlikowski, 2007) because it provides affordances in much the same way as physical artefacts do. When talking about artefacts in this dissertation, I thus mean objects that are either physical or digital, and visible and/or tangible. Most focus in studies on artefacts has been on those artefacts that directly intend to steer behaviour. These are often called ‘artefactual representations’ of routines (see e.g. D’Adderio 2011) or ‘rule-embedded artefacts’. Examples are Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and checklists. These artefacts thus embed the formal rule and function as a model for the actual routine (D’Adderio, 2008, 2011; Pentland & Feldman, 2008). Artefactual representations intend to operate an activity or solve a problem. These artefacts can be used as instruments to communicate, collaborate, negotiate or coordinate activities (Greenhalgh et al., 2010). They control actions since they signal to routine participants what they should pay attention to, and where they should focus their concentration. These artefactual representations of routines can take on different forms, such as printed posters, memory boards or modules in the software system. Checklists can be considered ‘cognitive artefacts’ as they intend to aid, enhance, or improve cognition (D’Adderio, 2011). These artefacts, some of which may be subsequently embedded in a software artefact, are mostly introduced to design or redesign work processes (Feldman and Pentland, 2005; Pentland and Feldman, 2008). Besides the rule-embedded artefacts, I mention other material aspects here, that not directly intend to create a specific routine, but nevertheless might influence the creation of a routine. These include other objects, such as furniture, equipment and devices, clothing and the like that can intermediate between artefactual representations of a rule and behaviour patterns. In the context 3