Laura Seppänen
email: laura.seppanen@ttl.fi

Laure Kloetzer
email: laure.kloetzer@unine.ch

Jarno Riikonen
email: jarno.riikonen@pshp.fi

Mikael Wahlström
email: mikael.wahlstrom@vtt.fi

A Developmental Perspective to Studying Objects in Robotic Surgery

Keywords: developmental intervention research, object, robotic surgery, activity theory, self-confrontation

Drawing on interventionist activity theoretical approaches, this paper describes a method of self-confrontation as a way in which to study objects in technology-mediated practices. In addition to research interests, the aim of examining the objects is to develop the capacity of professionals and organizations to work and learn better in complex technology-mediated work. The method was applied in robotic surgery, in which instruments are tele-operated by a surgeon. The robot offers better, collective visualization of the area under surgical operation than previous techniques. In particular, the paper shows how objects were revealed and new objects emerged during the intervention. We suggest that activity theoretical developmental interventions such as self-confrontations may help understand the complexity and evolution of objects, and thus contribute to studies of technology and organizations.

Introduction: The Developmental Perspective

The focus of sociomaterial assemblages is on agencies such as actors and objects, which have saturated each other so thoroughly that previously taken-for-granted boundaries have now dissolved [START_REF] Orlikowski | Sociomateriality: Challenging the Separation of Technology, Work and Organization[END_REF]. According to a relational ontology, entitieswhether human or technological -have no inherent properties; they acquire their form, attributes and capabilities through their interpenetration. The notion of "sociomaterial" attempts to signal this ontological fusion [START_REF] Orlikowski | Sociomateriality: Challenging the Separation of Technology, Work and Organization[END_REF] (p. 456). Similarly, Annemarie Mol [START_REF] Mol | The Body Multiple: Ontology in Medical Practice[END_REF], in discussing the way out of the dichotomy between the knowing subject and the objects-that-are-known, suggests spreading "the activity of knowing widely over tables, knives, records, microscopes, or other things of habits in which it is embedded" [START_REF] Mol | The Body Multiple: Ontology in Medical Practice[END_REF] (p. 50). Instead of subjects knowing objects, we may come to talk about enacting reality in practice [START_REF] Mol | The Body Multiple: Ontology in Medical Practice[END_REF]. The view that objects are enacted in practice, for Mol, suggests that something is enacted only there and then, in the act. Although activities take place, the actors remain vague [START_REF] Mol | The Body Multiple: Ontology in Medical Practice[END_REF].

Sociomaterial assemblages are important in their consideration of humans and other living entities such as technologies and other materials, and have many advantages in terms of science and policy. The concept of sociomaterial assemblages implies that concrete practices or activities are important in the assemblages" enactment (or becoming). However, we argue that we must not lose sight of the human in these practices: first, because even the naming and meaning of a practice, or any entity, are human endeavours: a building may be a hospital to us, but not necessarily so to a fly on the wall. Second, because most changes through time are triggered and driven by the human actors in or outside the systems under study at a given historical time. Although it is important to acknowledge the distributed nature of agency involved in sociomaterial assemblages, it may also be useful and interesting to study them precisely from the human perspective. To investigate sociomaterial practices as dynamic and evolving interpretations of humans in these practices does not necessarily mean a return to an individualist stance of agency. Nor does it lead to denial of the material world. On the contrary, it may lead to the transformation of the sociomaterial assemblages at stake.

Our suggestion for a research encounter with technology and organization is developmental interventionist research, based on a dialectical ontology. We refer to an article by Charles Tolman [START_REF] Tolman | The Metaphysic of Relations in Klaus Riegel's "Dialectics" of Human Development[END_REF], which contrasts dialectics with the metaphysics of properties and the metaphysics of relations. According to Hegel's dialectical thought, things do not pre-exist, and cannot be independently conceived of their relations with other things [START_REF] Tolman | The Metaphysic of Relations in Klaus Riegel's "Dialectics" of Human Development[END_REF]. This is similar to relational ontology [START_REF] Orlikowski | Sociomateriality: Challenging the Separation of Technology, Work and Organization[END_REF], which dissolves the analytical boundaries between technologies and humans. However, dialectics proposes more than this: it advocates seeing temporal movement as part of interconnections and relations [START_REF] Tolman | The Metaphysic of Relations in Klaus Riegel's "Dialectics" of Human Development[END_REF]. It is thus interested in change, development and the "becoming" of both human and non-human entities. For dialectics, a concrete understanding of a thing is an understanding of it in its interconnections and dynamic movements. Movement and change is reality itself [START_REF] Chia | Essai: Time, Duration and Simultaneity: Rethinking Process and Change in Organizational Analysis[END_REF].

Developmental intervention is defined as a purposeful action by an agent to create change [START_REF] Midgley | Systemic Intervention: Philosophy, Methodology and Practice[END_REF]. Kurt Lewin, already in 1947, advocated harnessing science in the service of intervention rather than observation [START_REF] Midgley | Systemic Intervention: Philosophy, Methodology and Practice[END_REF]. Practices are bombarded with both deliberate and incidental interventions, also without research [START_REF] Engeström | Foreword: Formative Interventions for Expansive Learning[END_REF]. Within a developmental intervention, the focus at least partly shifts from discovering how things are to exploring how things may evolve. The interventionist approach focuses not only on how researchers interpret the object of study, but also on how research intervenes in practices in which objects and entities are enacted [START_REF] Cerf | Is Participatory Research a Scientific Practice[END_REF][START_REF] Kloetzer | Dialogues and Interactions as "the Nursery for Change[END_REF][START_REF] Saari | Co-development and Retooling as New Roles for Applied Research[END_REF]. Because it supports professionals' new interpretations and object formations, interventionist research is, we believe, a possible way in which to renew our understanding of technologies in organizations. In addition to practical outcomes, interventionist research can advance theories (see e.g. [START_REF] Kostulski | Controversy as a Developmental Tool in Cross-Self Confrontation[END_REF][START_REF] Engeström | The Interplay of Developmental and Dialogical Epistemologies[END_REF]).

In this paper, we describe, quite practically, the method of selfconfrontations in the Activity Clinic approach, as elaborated by a French cultural historical psychology group [START_REF] Clot | Clinic of Activity: The Dialogue as an Instrument[END_REF][START_REF] Kloetzer | Development of Professional Concepts Through Work Analysis: Tech Diving Under the Loop of Activity Clinic[END_REF], and based on a dialogical interpretation of the indirect methodology of L.S. Vygotsky [START_REF] Vygotsky | La Signification historique de la crise en psychologie. Delachaux et Niestlé[END_REF][START_REF] Vygotsky | La Méthode instrumentale en psychologie[END_REF][START_REF] Vygotsky | Défectologie et déficience mentale[END_REF][START_REF] Vygotsky | Histoire du développement des fonctions psychiques supérieures[END_REF]. The assumption is that this method helps understand and enhance an interpretive way of working [START_REF] Norros | Core-Task Design: A Practice-Theory Approach to Human Factors[END_REF][START_REF] Savioja | Identifying Resilience in Proceduralised Accident Management Activity of NPP Operating Crews[END_REF], which is needed in increasingly complex, technology-mediated and uncertain work activities. The second author of this paper is a member of the community of the Activity Clinic, whereas the first author has worked extensively with another activity theoretical approach, namely Developmental Work Research [START_REF] Engeström | Learning by Expanding. An Activity-Theoretical Approach to Developmental Research[END_REF][START_REF] Seppänen | Creating Tools for Farmers' Learning: An Application of Developmental Work Research[END_REF]. These approaches look at technology and organization from the perspective of activities [START_REF] Seppänen | Relational Agency in the Development of Tools of Service Networks[END_REF], and they share a similar concept of the object [START_REF] Leont'ev | Activity, Consciousness, and Personality[END_REF] to that which we apply in our study.

In this paper we will describe, first, how the method of self-confrontations was used in a study of robotic surgery. Secondly, we will identify the different kinds of objects that were present and that emerged in the three-step process of the intervention, by analysing a situational action in robotic surgery. Before presenting the method and the empirical analysis, we will take a look at robotic surgery.

The Robot in Surgery

Technological advances in optics, digital video equipment, computers and robotics have opened up new possibilities in surgery. Robotic-assisted surgery is the most recent such advancement. One device, called the da Vinci Surgical System (Intuitive Surgical® Inc.), first introduced in 2000, has become significant in the field of urology. By sophisticated technology at the tips of robotic instruments, a surgeon can operate on the human body with the facility of a human wrist. As in laparoscopy, the operation is performed via tubes (trocars) inserted into the patient through small incisions. This "minimally invasive" technique is different from open surgery, which requires a longer incision. In robotic surgery, the instruments are teleoperated by a surgeon, using a separate console that provides a 3D-vision stereo view [START_REF] Su | Laparoscopic and Robotic-Assisted Laparoscopic Radical Prostatectomy and Pelvic Lymphadetectomy[END_REF]. Properties such as tremor abolition, motion scaling and 3D vision can substantially improve the dexterity of the operation, especially in suturing within the patient's body [START_REF] Moorthy | Dexterity Enhancement with Robotic Surgery[END_REF]. Compared to open surgery, robotic surgery is more beneficial in terms of shorter hospital stays, decreased blood loss, fewer complications, decreased pain and better outcomes for patients [START_REF] Hussain | The Use of Robotics in Surgery: A Review[END_REF].

Our empirical data are about radical prostatectomy, a surgical operation in which a cancerous prostate gland is removed entirely. Although surgery is the primary treatment choice for localized prostate cancer, other treatment modalities also exist. The rationality of surgery depends on the patient's general condition, the type and extensiveness of the cancer, and the patient's expectations and preferences. The patient needs to know the potential benefits and risks of surgery compared to other treatments before making a decision. When surgical treatment is correctly chosen and the patient is well informed, the results of the therapy are excellent.

The main objective of this robotic surgery operation is to remove the cancerous prostate gland from the patient's body. We can divide the procedure into three phases: (a) exposure, (b) dissection of the prostate, and (c) sewing anastomosis, which means reconnecting the urethra and the urinary bladder (Figure 1). Exposure of the prostate is unavoidable, because the gland is located deep in the male pelvis and is not visible at the beginning of the operation. The most challenging phase is the dissection of the prostate. The surgeon must be careful not to damage important adjacent structures, such as erectile nerves, the neck of the urinary bladder, the muscles affecting urinary continence, and the rectum. However, if the surgeon dissects the prostate too near the prostate surface, there is a risk that some cancer may remain. The correct dissection plane is estimated by preoperative studies, such as blood tests, radiological images and prostate biopsies. The functional and oncological outcomes are measured at follow-up visits. The operative team often consists of two surgeons, two assisting nurses, an anaesthesiologist and an anaesthesia nurse (Figure 2). The whole team mediates the control of the robot and the surgical operation [START_REF] Healey | Teamwork Enables Surgical Control and a New Model for a Surgical System Emerges[END_REF]. The robot also changes the quality of communication, as it inhibits face-to-face interaction, thus reducing the ability to anticipate without explicit demands [START_REF] Nyssen | Investigating Expertise, Flexibility and Resilience in Socio-technical Environments: A Case Study In Robotic Surgery[END_REF]. This is different to conventional laparoscopy.

Most importantly, robots offer better visualization than other technologies [START_REF] Hussain | The Use of Robotics in Surgery: A Review[END_REF]. All members of the team in the operation room see the operation on-line, and can anticipate forthcoming tasks. In contrast to open surgery, surgeons need to see or induce visual indicators to guide their operation, because there is no tactile (haptic) feedback from the robotic device. This may be one of the biggest challenges as compared to open surgery. Therefore, the surgeons and the operating room team need to create and constantly maintain a good visual view by, for example, positioning the camera correctly and keeping the lens clean. The acts of pulling, poking and pushing play a significant role in tissue identification via the visual sense [START_REF] Aaltonen | Evaluating Technological Solutions for Improving User Experience, Learning, and Operation Outcome in Robotic Surgery[END_REF]. With extensive experience, surgeons can develop a combined sense, sometimes called "visual haptics" [START_REF] Roulette | Future Directions and Alternate Systems for Robotic Surgery[END_REF]. As the robotic system, and especially the camera, transforms the activities of the surgeons and nurses, it may also induce opportunities for learning and developing. The operations are routinely video-recorded, which means they can later be watched, evaluated and reflected upon. Robotic surgery videos are already being used in the global community of surgeons in scientific conferences and medical journals, and in the training programmes of the company of the robotic surgi-cal device. Operating manner and skill is sometimes described as a surgeons' own handwriting, and this can be seen in the videos. Next, we turn to the developmental method used in the research on this surgical activity.

The Developmental Interventionist Method and the Concept of Object

This paper is part of a research project that investigates interpretive practice as a promising mode of action for coping with dynamism, complexity and uncertainty at work. Studies of nuclear power plant operations carried out by Leena Norros and Paula Savioja found that even in this highly regulated and proceduralized work, the operators' actual work practices vary considerably [START_REF] Norros | Core-Task Design: A Practice-Theory Approach to Human Factors[END_REF][START_REF] Savioja | Identifying Resilience in Proceduralised Accident Management Activity of NPP Operating Crews[END_REF]. The behaviours that reflected the operators' own interpretation of a situation; questioning the observed phenomena, dialoguing within the team, anticipating the system state, and using various information sources, were labelled "interpretive practice" [START_REF] Norros | Core-Task Design: A Practice-Theory Approach to Human Factors[END_REF]. This paper's exploratory investigation of objects aims to support the study of interpretive practice. Moreover, we hope to contribute to the research project's aim of outlining a method for enhancing the interpretive way of working in robotic surgery.

If interpretive practices -as continuous learning that makes new connections between phenomena -are increasingly needed in work, we need dialogic methods to support the learning of this way of working. We consider that a method from the Activity Clinic called self-confrontations is suitable for this purpose. This method follows two principles. First, the principle of indirect methodologies [START_REF] Vygotsky | La Signification historique de la crise en psychologie. Delachaux et Niestlé[END_REF][START_REF] Vygotsky | La Méthode instrumentale en psychologie[END_REF][START_REF] Vygotsky | Défectologie et déficience mentale[END_REF] suggests that "it is necessary to transform in order to understand, because activity does not allow its enigmas to be resolved until it is put into movement" [START_REF] Clot | Clinic of Activity: The Dialogue as an Instrument[END_REF] (p. 287). Second, the law of the double source of development states that new functions first appear on an interpersonal plane before appearing on an intrapersonal plane [START_REF] Vygotsky | Histoire du développement des fonctions psychiques supérieures[END_REF]. This methodology therefore relies on processes of objectivation and subjectivation, in which the subjects develop new ways of looking at their work activity through engagement in a dialogical process with the researchers, with their peers and with traces (here, video recordings) of their work activity. The change of addressees, that is, the participants to whom talk is directed, is a way in which to enhance dialogue and the emergence of new objects. By being dialogical and interested in increasing understanding and effecting change, the Activity Clinic can help phronesis, enhancing a socially relevant form of knowledge [START_REF] Flyvbjerg | Introduction: New Directions in Social Science[END_REF].

Although human perspective remains central in our study, its nature depends on the material and social practices in which it is involved, and the mediational tools used by the agent [START_REF] Nicolini | Practice Theory, Work, and Organization. An Introduction[END_REF]. In activity theories, human conduct is seen as activities that are oriented towards social and material objects in the world, and mediated by signs and tools [START_REF] Kloetzer | Stimulating Dialogue at Work: The Activity Clinic Approach to Learning and Development[END_REF]. Objects are sources of motivation and sociality. Considering the activity of robotic surgery as far as it is analysed in our research, we distinguish between primary and secondary objects. The primary object types concern objects of the concrete work activity under examination in the intervention. The first type, O1, includes the main objects of the work activity. These are socially shared objects, the motive around which the whole activity system is designed, such as, in our case, removing the cancerous prostate of the patient. The second type, O2, are the material objects of the work environment. These are external, physical and symbolic objects, including technical tools for mediating the work activity and the target, and the application point of the work activity. For example, the surgical tools, the robot and the body of the patient are of the O2 type. The O3-type object is a psychological object, a leading motive of the human agent at a given time in a specific situation, and organizes actions.

The types of secondary objects are related to the research activity, and more precisely, to the dialogic activity in the intervention process. The fourth type of object, O4, is the object of the research as constructed and partially shared by the researchers and the professionals. In this research project, this type of object is understanding the phenomenon of interpretive practice more deeply, and outlining a method for enhancing it. The fifth type, O5, is the object of dialogue. In Sitri's sense [START_REF] Sitri | L'Objet du débat[END_REF] these objects are linguistic objects that allow us to understand what interlocutory partners are discussing, as it becomes discernible in the selfconfrontation transcripts. The final type, O6, are objects of thinking, which are the psychological objects that the participants reflect on and argue about.

In the self-confrontation encounters, the main O1 objects are generally obvious and shared by the professionals, and have been mentioned to the researchers during earlier phases of the intervention. The material O2 objects are represented through the video-recording of the work activity and might be picked up by the participants in their dialogues for further discussion. The organizing O3 objects are not directly apparent in the video-recordings, nor directly expressed in the protocols of the work activity, but may appear in the dialogues. The O4 object is also generally implicit, defining the framing of the intervention encounters which has been negotiated earlier and which may or may not be remembered in the dialogues. The O5 objects of dialogue must be reconstructed through an analysis of the transcribed dialogues. The O6 objects are implicit, and not always present. But when they are, they might be reconstructed from the development of the dialogue, or from the architecture of the whole conversation as in a case of controversies [START_REF] Kloetzer | We Are Not Gurus[END_REF].

Our categorization above is inspired by the concept of "object of activity" of A.N. Leont'ev [START_REF] Leont'ev | Activity, Consciousness, and Personality[END_REF] in the cultural-historical activity theory. For Leont'ev, an object is something both given and imagined, projected or constructed. The given nature of objects mean that they have independent existence outside human perception and action. In the imagined or constructed capacity, an object gains a motivating force that gives shape and direction to human activities and defines the horizon of its possibilities. This view suggests, from the activity perspective, an intimate connection between concrete material and psychological, socio-cultural objects. Next, we will take a look at the methodical process of self-confrontations in robotic surgery.

4

Self-Confrontation Process

Simple Self-Confrontation. The first phase in this developmental intervention, simple self-confrontation, means that the professional -in this case a surgeontogether with the researcher-interventionist, watched a series of short sequences of video-recorded material of their activities. The video excerpts were selected by the researchers, based on the surgeons' suggestions on important and challenging operation phases. These phases were difficult for surgeons who were learning the robotic technique, and more routine for the experienced senior surgeons. The researchers had observed all the surgical operations that formed the chosen video excerpts. Prior to the self-confrontations, the researchers had also interviewed the surgeons, who were from various hospitals and had read urological material about the robotic-assisted prostatectomy.

The researchers asked the surgeons to describe as precisely as possible the gestures and actions that were observable in the video, and tried to support their questioning of what they see themselves doing in the video. Explaining one's actions to a researcher from outside the medical and surgical domain, as was the case in simple self-confrontations, prompts professionals to articulate their intentions and actions in different phases, according to what is visible on the videorecordings. This is intended to help the professionals work in an interpretive way, by forming new relationships between the objects, their actions and multiple other issues in their work [START_REF] Seppänen | Learning Interpretativeness for Sustainability: Exploring the Self-Confrontation Method in Robotic Surgery[END_REF]. The simple self-confrontation was carried out separately on two surgeons who were already experienced in robotic techniques, and two other qualified surgeons, who were learning to operate using the robot.

In addition to watching the video excerpts, the surgeons were asked in advance to bring with them the current case histories of the patients undergoing the operations in the videos. Due to practical reasons, the time interval between the initial surgical operation (in the chosen video excerpts) and the simple selfconfrontation was sufficient so that in most cases, the pathologic results (regarding the removal of the cancer as the main object) and some information about postoperative complications and the functional outcomes of the operation (at least urinary continence) were already available. The case histories added a temporal dimension to the self-confrontations and thus changed their quality. Patients' case histories were present in all three phases of the intervention process.

Crossed Self-Confrontation. Later, encounters were organized between a researcher and two surgeons who had both previously participated in a simple selfconfrontation. In this crossed self-confrontation, the video sequences in which each of the surgeons was the main operator at the console, were watched together. The actions of the same surgeon were again shown on the same video excerpt. The researcher asked the surgeons to comment on the actions of their colleague, on their own actions, and to share their opinions and questions. The purpose of this phase was to create a dialogue regarding different ways of acting. The professionals now needed to address their speech to both the researcher and their colleague.

The aim of this "double addressing" was to help the professionals further change their way of looking at the actions in the video. Earlier work from the Activity Clinic perspective has found that repetition and change of addressee plays a critical role in elaboration [START_REF] Kloetzer | Stimulating Dialogue at Work: The Activity Clinic Approach to Learning and Development[END_REF].

Workshop. In the third phase, all four surgeons, together with the researchers, gathered for a workshop to discuss the findings of the project so far. During the workshop, they watched selected video excerpts to discuss the variety of practices that were revealed during simple and crossed self-confrontations.

All six self-confrontations and the workshop were video-recorded, and the discussions were transcribed for analysis. Later, in this still ongoing project, a joint workshop with the surgeons and the competence developers of the hospital will be held, in order to discuss and generalize the organizational guidance practices. Below, we demonstrate the intervention process with an account of the selfconfrontation process. We also raise and interpret, in a preliminary and exploratory way, the different objects revealed in the data.

An Extra Hole in the Urinary Bladder

Our empirical case is about a situated action detail in an operation phase during which the prostate is released from its contact with the urinary bladder (Figure 1, phase B). The case was selected because this phase is generally challenging, has an interesting variation, and exemplifies the surgeons' reflective dialogue throughout the process. The robot has significantly changed the technique of this phase from that of open surgery. 1 In this particular operation, the installing of the catheter was much more difficult than usual, due to a stricture of the urethra. The patient needed another operation, an incision of the stricture, before the catheter could be installed. Therefore, the beginning of the surgical operation using the robot was delayed by about 45 minutes.

A video excerpt of Surgeon 1 operating the bladder neck area was first watched in a simple self-confrontation between the researcher and Surgeon 1. As well as the biological tissues and structures around the bladder neck, the video excerpt shows the instruments of burning and cutting as teleoperated by the main surgeon, and the suction, traction and transporting instruments handled by the assisting surgeon. It also shows how the catheter controlled by the nurse is used for identifying the transition space between bladder neck and prostate.

Excerpt 1 (from Surgeon 1's simple self-confrontation)

S1: [watching the video, 15 sec] You can see that it's [bladder neck] open, on the bladder side, open more than necessary, but this isn't a problem. It's easy to sew, even if it was 5 cm here, even that could be sewn, it's not a problem. But you don't have to sew it, but when you sew it now, it makes anastomosis easier. We try to keep the bladder neck as small as possible. R1: Would there be an alternative? S1: If you just leave it like that, and there's the small isthmus, you would just cut that isthmus and then, when you do the anastomosis, you would just patch it up, because then you have to join two things, a tube of this size and another of this size, and then you just patch up and patch up here, so in this way (inaudible).

Figure 3 shows the part of the video discussed in this situation. Only a narrow isthmus separated the extra hole from the bladder neck where the urethra was already partly cut. Some of the objects, such as those of the organizing O3 type, can be interpreted through the way in which the surgeons express the reasons or justifications for their actions and choices. First, Surgeon 1 claimed that the object and purpose for his decision to repair the extra hole in this phase was easier anastomosis. Another object expressed by Surgeon 1 was to "keep the bladder neck narrow" which in other instances is also called saving the bladder neck. These are not activity-level O1-type objects (such as the removal of the cancer here) in Leont'ev's terms. As they are projected "downwards", and thus direct the practices of the operation, we call them O3-type objects -objects that manifest themselves in the actions of individual surgeons, and become articulated by them. The psychological activity of the surgeon is directed towards the body of the patient, and mediated by the technical instruments, including the robot.

The same video excerpt was watched again in the crossed selfconfrontation between two surgeons.

Excerpt 2a (from crossed self-confrontation between Surgeons 1 and 2)

R1 Here, Surgeon 1 observes his small reflection. It is visible in the video as a threesecond pause without moving the robotic instruments. Seeing the video excerpt prompts Surgeon 1 to explain the pause to his colleague, because, as we interpret, it is an exception to the normal pace. This explanation can be due to an implicit O3 organizing object, operating quickly and smoothly. He accounts not only for the object of the hole and the urethra, but importantly, also turns his own actions, by explaining his "putting some sutures", into an O5-type object of dialogue. Surgeon 2 is spontaneously surprised by his colleague's action, and openly expresses this. The fact that Surgeon 1 turns his actions into an object of joint discussion and reflection, and that Surgeon 2 expresses a different opinion on the best way to proceed, suggests that the dialogical framework is working; encompassing trust, freedom of expression, shared interest in investigating the activity and balance of power. This excerpt shows variety in the actions of the surgeons.

Excerpt 2b (from crossed self-confrontation between Surgeons 1 and 2)

R1: Interesting, how did you end up sewing? S1: Well, I mainly thought that there's a nice isthmus anyway and it's open from there, the bladder neck, in the right place. So I thought let's close the wrong place, so it went as was planned. Now, Surgeon 1 expresses another O3-type of object: a return to the initial plan. We interpret that this object aims at restoring the patient "form" to the normal state: in contrast to the norm, the hole was a deviation from the kind of incision that is typically inflicted on the patient, and therefore sewing would restore nor-mality. The plan here may refer to two things: the standardized process or protocol followed globally in the robotic surgery to remove the cancerous prostate [START_REF] Kloetzer | Stimulating Dialogue at Work: The Activity Clinic Approach to Learning and Development[END_REF], or the plan made for each individual patient. As regards the former, according to our interviews, following a standardized protocol is even more important in robotic than in open surgery. 2 This is curious, as (or maybe because!) the robotic device extends surgeons' visual and dexterity capabilities. Regarding the latter, the individual plan is about the concrete aims in each operation. It is indeed possible that the disturbance in installing the catheter and the subsequent delay in starting the surgical operation strengthened this object, i.e. the surgeon's motive to return to the initial plan.

Excerpt 2c (from crossed self-confrontation between Surgeons 1 and 2)

R1: Yes. And S2 how do you justify this? S2: It's so close to the bladder neck that I would have cut it and then sewn it, as normal, as part of the anastomosis there. It wouldn't have been so big, you could've saved the bladder neck quite easily from the right side. It [the bladder neck] would not have become very big. S1: No, I guess not.

In this excerpt, Surgeon 2 interestingly justifies his alternative action with the same object of saving the bladder neck. This shows that it is a collectively shared object. The actions are different, but the object is common. This is a very interesting outcome of crossed self-confrontation, which allows the researchers to understand which shared objects of the O3 type are present at a given time in the situation, and how they are influenced by the technology.

The same video clip (Figure 3) was discussed again in a workshop of four surgeons involved in self-confrontations.

Excerpt 3 (from the collective workshop of four surgeons)

R2: [showing again the same video excerpt as in Excerpts Surgeon 1 questions his decision. He seems to focus his reflection on his relationship with this object of "putting some sutures", by encouraging his colleagues to give their comments. He used the eyes of his colleagues, their external perspective, as a resource to observe and evaluate his own activity differently. Surgeon 4 provides many justifications in a dilemmatic way, and notes the "help in reconstruction" (which is the same object, we interpret, as easy anastomosis). The intense participation and shared inquiry show how the object of the psychological activity of Surgeon 1 is shared by all the surgeons in the workshop.

During the workshop, the surgeons said that they planned to organize meetings for watching selected video excerpts together, also after the intervention. This idea may materialize later as a new organizational practice. This would also strengthen the local community spirit of robotic surgeons, as expressed by a surgeon later.

Discussion and Conclusion: How Do Objects Evolve in the Self-Confrontation Process?

The dialogue in the intervention, facilitated by the researcher and the video excerpts, makes the relevant objects of the surgical activity sharable among the participants. This is accomplished thanks to the intervention framework, in which video, questioning by the researchers and talking to peers make actions and objects emerge. Just as the robotic camera changes the surgeons' viewpoint regarding the patient's body and operation process, so does the intervention, albeit in an unusual way. In this paper, we conceptualize this change of viewpoints as evolving objects.

The camera of the robotic device producing the digital video images is perhaps the most important technical object from the perspective of this paper. Its role is crucial in the surgical operation for transmitting the ongoing visual image for the team. In the research, researchers and professionals select some video excerpts to be shown in the intervention encounters. The fact that the video clip is also an outcome of the surgeons' own collaborative activity may enhance engagement and learning when watching and reflecting on them. Although not totally neutral, the video images still offer an objective view to what happened in a particular work situation. The power of video excerpts in self-confrontation encounters is in showing numerous material objects in action. The concreteness of the ob-jects in the video excerpts, present in all phases of the self-confrontation process, is a rich resource for reflection and interpretation in the intervention. Some objects in the video are taken into participants' discussion and others are not, which is an interesting theme for further study. 3 In our case, the extra hole in the urinary bladder was such an object. Our study contributes to discussions of the pedagogic uses of digital visual images, increasingly important in both workplaces and society.

Inspired by the notion of sociomaterial assemblages [START_REF] Orlikowski | Sociomateriality: Challenging the Separation of Technology, Work and Organization[END_REF], we use the temporal intervention process to trace the appearance of the objects. The dialogue in the first intervention encounter identified a material object (the hole in the bladder), the concrete action taken and a possible alternative action for dealing with this situation. Our analysis uncovered how various situated and psychological O3 objects were taken up in the discussion. They function as organizing situational actions, but they may be partly implicit for the actors. They are expected to either help the fluidity of the operation or contribute to other societal and functional objects of the activities. The O3 objects are flexible and dynamic -individual surgeons may harness them into use as either a standard or occasional practice. The material and technical objects visible in the video excerpts were crucial in revealing these organizing objects and enabling their articulation in the dialogue.

The second, crossed self-confrontation with two professionals made the O3-type objects ones of dialogue and disagreement (O5). The research point in raising them for discussion is not to judge what is right or wrong, but to better understand this work activity by supporting professional development through discovering and reflecting on the variation of its objects. In the third encounter -the workshop -the same initial object seen in the video gave rise to yet another O5type object: a professional taking his relationship with his action as an object of dialogue, using his colleagues' perspectives as resources for reflection. Through objects of the O5 type, an action may turn into a means of thinking about other possibilities. The active participation of professionals shows the shared nature of this object. The temporal sequence of evolving objects is visualized in Figure 4. The variation and complexity of the objects is of interest for the study of making new connections in interpretive practice [START_REF] Norros | Core-Task Design: A Practice-Theory Approach to Human Factors[END_REF]. The development of the objects of the activity in the intervention is supported by the research framework, which offers a strong focus on a shared analysis of the activity of the surgeon, based on video clips of real operations. This shared analysis then intertwines two related activities: one activity concerning joint observation of the significant details of their actions, based on concrete visual images of their own working; and an activity of dialogue, in which the questioning and reasoning regarding situations and alternative actions -thus enhancing the interpretive practice -is first experienced at the interpersonal level, through dialogical exchange, before being experienced at the intrapersonal level, as multiple possible viewpoints of one's own activity, offering perspectives for its development. Turning back to the objects and their development, which we have traced in our exploratory analysis as analytical tools to help understand complex technological activities, we show how O5-type objects of dialogue appear in the discussion from O3-type psychological objects, which are not usually easily shared or observed in everyday practice. These O5-types objects of dialogue may then become O6-types objects of thinking, which may be a means of considering other possibilities, and therefore have some potential for transforming the material and organizational objects (01-to O3-type objects of the concrete surgery activity). Therefore, throughout the intervention, the focus may shift from production activities to ways and means for developing these activities. This is why we call this kind of research developmental.

We see the intimate connection between different types objects. The main social object of removing the cancerous prostate would not exist without the mate-rial prostate in the human body or the technical instruments for removing it. However, differentiating between these object types facilitates analysis, for both researchers and practitioners. Thus, the dialogue around these objects may strengthen individual, collective (in the community of surgeons) and organizational development. Although we did not yet analyse the objects of thinking of the O6 type, the surgeons' interest in continuing to collectively watch the operation video excerpts, and their expression of how the intervention strengthened their local community spirit, indicate positive outcomes of self-confrontations. However, the intervention needs to be evaluated further.

Activity-theoretical interventions differ from many other developmental approaches, as they focus on concrete human activities and their objects. The objects of professionals' work, often in their material and concrete forms, are made visible for collective reflection, learning and revealing developmental possibilities. Despite the ambiguity of the concept [START_REF] Kaptelinin | The Object of Activity: Making Sense of the Sense-Maker[END_REF][START_REF] Nardi | Objects of Desire: Power and Passion in Collaborative Activity[END_REF], objects of activity are powerful sense-makers that help anchor and contextualize subjective phenomena in the objective world. It is important that more subjective object constructions, such as those examined here, find a voice in organizational practice and research.

In this paper, we have, in an exploratory way, identified and analysed some objects in an intervention using the method of self-confrontation. The intervention related different kinds of objects; first the material objects transmitted by the video image to the psychological and social objects in the intervention encounters, which led to an idea of a new concrete practice. We see that the temporal process of self-confrontations is helpful in seeing different objects, their interrelations and their renewal. Activity theoretical developmental interventionist research could contribute to studies of technology and organization by revealing the complexity and evolution of objects.

Fig. 1 .

 1 Fig. 1. A rough sketch of the radical prostatectomy. (A) Original location of the urinary bladder, the prostate and the urethra that goes from the bladder through the prostate. (B) In the operation, the prostate is separated and removed. (C) The urethra is reconnected to the urinary bladder (Simplified from [27])

Fig. 2 .

 2 Fig. 2. Sketch of operation room setting during robotic-assisted surgery of prostate. One robotic arm transmits camera view from inside body on-line to console and to four video monitors (1).

Fig. 3 .

 3 Fig. 3. An extra hole (left) when separating the prostate from the urinary bladder

Fig. 4 .

 4 Fig. 4. Evolution of objects in the self-confrontation process

Table 1 .

 1 Types of object used in the study

	Objects	Description	Example
	Primary objects -re-
	lated to the work ac-
	tivity
	O1	Main social object of the ac-	Removing can-
		tivity of robotic surgery	cerous prostate of
			patient
	O2	Material objects of the work	Surgical	tools,
		environment	body of patient
	O3	Psychological object, situat-	Operating quickly
		ed leading motive of the	and	smoothly;
		human agent organizing	saving	bladder
		one's action	neck
	Secondary objects -
	related to the dialogic
	activity in the inter-
	vention process
	O4	Object of the research, con-	Analysing robotic
		structed and partially shared	surgery in order
		by the researchers and the	to understand and
		professionals	support interpre-
			tive practice
	O5	Object of dialogue, linguis-	Cutting or not
		tic object whose appearance	cutting?
		and development can be
		traced in transcripts
	O6	Object of thinking, psycho-	Best way to pro-
		logical object on which the	ceed in this and
		professionals reflect	future	similar
			cases

  : S1, can you tell us about the hole? S1: Yes, it [the hole] is here on the left, it goes to the bladder side. Here from the bladder neck. I reflect for a while about what to do here, to cut the isthmus

	or, to put some sutures (--) It's just a small hole and…
	S2: You cut.
	S1: No, I (--).
	S2: Really?
	S1: Yes.
	S2: I see. I would have cut.
	S1: You would have cut?
	S2: I would have cut.

With the robot, the bladder neck transection is the first step in releasing the prostate gland, while in open surgery it is the last phase. In open surgery, the right place for the transection can be tactilely felt by the fingers, whereas in the robotic technique, the challenge lies in identifying the right place for the transection on the basis of mere visual cues; those either already existing, or those induced by the surgeons or nurse.

The robot is both an instrumentality and a medium[START_REF] Rückriem | Digital Technology and Mediation: A Challenge to Activity Theory[END_REF], as it modifies the modes of perception of the environment. The technical objects of the robot were not often taken as objects of dialogue by the surgeons in the self-confrontation process. The robot may be such an intimate part of the everyday organizational experience that it becomes "invisible'[START_REF] Orlikowski | Sociomateriality: Challenging the Separation of Technology, Work and Organization[END_REF].

Acknowledgements. Thanks to Leena Norros for her useful comments. We also thank all the surgeons and researchers involved in this study for their contribution. Thanks are extended to the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments, and Alice Lehtinen for the language check. This study is part of the WOBLE research project (Developing new forms of work-based learning for the age of digitalization), funded by the Finnish Work Environment Fund, and part of the Future of Learning, Knowledge and Skills programme of the Academy of Finland.


Arto Lanamäki
email: arto.lanamaki@oulu.fi

Devinder Thapa
email: devinder.thapa@uia.no

Karen Stendal
email: karen.stendal@hbv.no

Devinder Thapa

When Is an Affordance? Outlining Four Stances

Keywords: Affordances, ontology, relational, temporal, information systems

des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

Introduction

The central question for the theory of affordances is not whether they exist but whether information is available in ambient light for perceiving them. (Gibson [START_REF] Gibson | The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception[END_REF], p. 140)

Affordance is a highly influential yet controversial concept [START_REF] Costall | The "Textbook Gibson": The Assimilation of Dissidence[END_REF]. It originates from the writings of James J. Gibson and has been a source for inspiration in many fields of research [START_REF] Şahin | To Afford or Not to Afford: A New Formalization of Affordances Toward Affordance-Based Robot Control[END_REF]. It has also found its way into our field of information systems (IS) [START_REF] Markus | A Foundation for the Study of IT Effects: A New Look at DeSanctis and Poole's Concepts of Structural Features and Spirit[END_REF][START_REF] Leonardi | When Flexible Routines meet Flexible Technologies: Affordance, Constraint, and the Imbrication of Human and Material Agencies[END_REF]. As a relational concept, it has provided a promise of a middle ground between technological determinism and voluntarism/constructionism [START_REF] Faraj | The Materiality of Technology: An Affordance Perspective[END_REF]. For example, Majchrzak, Markus, and Wareham [START_REF] Majchrzak | Designing for Digital Transformation: Lessons for Information Systems Research for the Study of ICT and Societal Challenges[END_REF] recently positioned affordance theory as "a lens that is particularly well suited to help IS scholars build theory about ICT use" (p. 272). The trouble of affordances as "relational" is that a "relation" has many different meanings [START_REF] Hetherington | After Networks[END_REF][START_REF] Dépelteau | What Is the Direction of the "Relational Turn[END_REF]. For example, is affordance a relation between the natural environment and animal, artifact and designers, designers and users, artifact and artifact, artifact and users, or among everything in a particular context? And how does that relationship emerge, when does it expire, or is it always present?

Proponents of the "relational turn" in many disciplines [START_REF] Quick | Taking a Relational Turn in Leadership Studies[END_REF][START_REF] Emirbayer | Manifesto for a Relational Sociology[END_REF] would argue that everything is relational. In an everyday sense, talking about anything requires a relationship to what we are talking about. We must be able to see it, feel it, hear about it, or at least think about it -not to mention that talking about is already one kind of a relationship between the talker and the talked about. For Gibson, that relationship was perceptual [START_REF] Gibson | Perceiving the Affordances: A Portrait of Two Psychologists[END_REF], although his notion of perception went far beyond visually seeing things [START_REF] Reed | James Gibson's Ecological Account to Cognition[END_REF]. In fact, Gibson "never explicated fully what he meant by perceiving things with reference to an animal" [START_REF] Jones | What Is an Affordance?[END_REF] (p. 112).

For the advancement of affordance theory in general and for IS research in particular, it is crucial to address what kind of a relationship is an affordance and when does it occur? These are the questions we address in this paper. An affordance's existenceits ontology, including its relational and temporal definition -is of the highest importance for further application and advancement of this concept. We researchers should share an understanding about the conditions under which this seemingly familiar concept we so often talk about does or does not exist.

In this paper, we outline four different stances from the research literature. All of these stances are consistent with Gibson, at least as much as Gibson is consistent with himself. Yet, each stance differs in its emphasis. We do not claim that any of these stances is better than the other, nor do we intend to create the proper ontological status for affordances. Instead, we aim to record the circulation of different ontologies in the IS community and build an argument for the situations in which each has its strength. The four stances are: canonical affordance, designed affordance, potential affordance, and affordance as completed action. Before going into those stances, we offer a short overview to how ontological aspects of the affordance theory were treated by James Gibson and his followers.

James J. Gibson: Affordances for Good or Ill

The affordances of the environment are what it offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes, either for good or ill. The verb to afford is found in the dictionary, but the noun affordance is not. I have made it up. I mean by it something that refers to both the environment and the animal in a way that no existing term does. It implies the complementarity of the animal and the environment. (Gibson [START_REF] Gibson | The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception[END_REF], p. 127, emphasis in original).

The concept 'affordance' originates in the work of ecological psychologist James J.

Gibson. The concept has been highly influential [START_REF] Makris | Viewing Objects and Planning Actions: On the Potentiation of Grasping Behaviours by Visual Objects[END_REF] while also remarkably controversial [START_REF] Costall | The "Textbook Gibson": The Assimilation of Dissidence[END_REF], [START_REF] Ullman | Against Direct Perception[END_REF]. The word "affordance" was first mentioned in Gibson's 1966 book The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems [START_REF] Gibson | The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems[END_REF], yet it is most popularly known from his 1979 book The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception [START_REF] Gibson | The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception[END_REF]. Some differences exist between the earlier and later formulations. Jones [START_REF] Jones | What Is an Affordance?[END_REF] has observed how early Gibson claimed "when an object's properties are perceived, one can detect the affordances of that object", while later Gibson insisted that "perceiving an object's properties and its affordances are quite different" [START_REF] Jones | What Is an Affordance?[END_REF] (p. 112).

A look into Gibson's above definition reveals how it is purposely vague [START_REF] Jones | What Is an Affordance?[END_REF]. The definition starts with "affordances of the environment" -hinting that affordances are, indeed, solely of the environment. The later part of the definition emphasizes complementarity. Gibson [START_REF] Gibson | The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception[END_REF] elaborated that an affordance is "neither an objective property nor a subjective property; or it is both if you like. An affordance cuts across the dichotomy of subjective-objective and helps us to understand its inadequacy. … An affordance points both ways, to the environment and to the observer" (p. 129). This is the level of specificity that Gibson provides. He points to interesting directions but leaves open where affordances come from and how long they persist. For Gibson, affordances simply exist. That's it. In fact, Gibson tackled further ontological inquiries by claiming that whether affordances exist or not is "not a central question" [START_REF] Gibson | The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception[END_REF] (p. 140). This dodging of ontology has attracted many critics. In particular, Costall [START_REF] Costall | Canonical Affordances and Creative Agency[END_REF] has called the omission of existence as "self-defeating": "How could something that did not exist be 'directly perceived'?!" (p. 48). Costall [START_REF] Costall | Canonical Affordances in Context[END_REF] has also attacked that "by foregrounding the issue of perception Gibson put the epistemological cart before the ontological horse" (p. 89).

In this paper, we dive into the existence of affordances. We are not the first in this task [START_REF] Sanders | An Ontology of Affordances[END_REF][START_REF] Turvey | Affordances and Prospective Control: An Outline of the Ontology[END_REF][START_REF] Bloomfield | Bodies, Technologies and Action Possibilities: When Is an Affordance? Sociology[END_REF][START_REF] Parchoma | The Contested Ontology of Affordances: Implications for Researching Technological Affordances for Collaborative Knowledge Production[END_REF], but our niche is in articulating a contribution to IS research specifically. We argue that an affordance's ontology -particularly its relational and temporal definition -is of the highest importance for the advancement of affordance theory. The difference between this paper and most previous approaches is that we argue against a single affordance theory. Instead, we promote multiple stances.

In the next section, we outline four stances from the literature. All of these stances are consistent with Gibson but they differ in their emphasis. We do not claim that any of these stances is better than the other. The stances are: canonical affordance, designed affordance, potential affordance, and affordance as completed action.

Four Stances for Affordances

In this section, we formulate four stances to clarify the various relational and temporal aspects scholars are attributing to the affordance concept. 1 Four stances for affordances

Canonical Affordances

Everyday examples of affordances tend to rely on familiar well-established meanings rather than the novel. This tendency can also be found in Gibson [START_REF] Gibson | The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception[END_REF]:

If a surface … is … knee-high above the ground, it affords sitting on. We call it a seat in general, or a stool, bench, chair, and so on, in particular. It may be natural like a ledge or artificial like a couch. … Knee-high for a child is not the same as knee-high for an adult, so the affordance is relative to the size of the individual. (p. 128)

What is visible in this example is the reliance on a canon. The meaning of a seat, a stool, or a bench is understandable in a relatively similar way by Gibson when he was writing this in the 1970s, by his readers back then, and by us readers now in 2016 and beyond. This refers to Costall's notion of canonical affordances [START_REF] Costall | Canonical Affordances and Creative Agency[END_REF], [START_REF] Costall | The Meaning of Things[END_REF].

In the IS context, there are several such canons. For example email, keyboard, and spreadsheet, all provide a sense of affordances. This understanding is not related to a particular artifact, but to the class of artifacts within a shared sociocultural canon.

The strength of this approach is the acknowledgment that certain established sociocultural and organizational meanings remain relatively unchanged over time and space: a car is for driving, a guitar is for playing, an airplane is for flying, and a keyboard for typing. The most commonly used example is that a chair is for sitting [START_REF] Lanamäki | What Does a Chair Afford? A Heideggerian Perspective of Affordances[END_REF]. Yet, it is not the contemporary designer of the chair who invented sitting. It is not the clever user who repurposed the tool for her needs. Canonical meanings and purposes have existed long before design and use. In fact, chairs and sitting have a history of several thousands of years [START_REF] Pynt | A History of Seating, 3000 BC to 2000 AD: Function Versus Aesthetics[END_REF]. A designer of an instance of a chair merely adopts the already-existing canonical meaning. In this way, the meaning is impersonal [START_REF] Morss | Old Mead in New Bottles: The Impersonal and the Interpersonal in Infant Knowledge[END_REF]. In the context of IT applications, a similar case is with email applications. These afford sending and receiving emails in general. It is neither the designer nor the user who established this meaning.

The canonical view adopts normative rhetoric and equates an entity with a canonical action. The affordance of stove is that it is for cooking. Similarly, boots are made for walking (and in the canonical sense, it is boots in general, not these boots). 1This correspondent logic is not all that different from the children's play of equating an animal with a sound: a cat says meow, dogs say woof-woof. Canonical affordance directs us to acknowledge the time prior to design and action. This point has been articulated by Bloomfield, Latham, and Vurdubakis [START_REF] Bloomfield | Bodies, Technologies and Action Possibilities: When Is an Affordance? Sociology[END_REF]:

One consequence of the notion of canonical affordances is its unfalsifiability. It is not a particular person but one who sits on chairs [START_REF] Costall | Canonical Affordances in Context[END_REF] or writes letters through email. This makes the affordance objectified and canonical, and thus it cannot be falsifiedor at least falsification is extremely improbable. How can one claim that chairs are not for sitting? You can prove that a chair is un-sit-able for you, for example, that sitting for extended periods causes you back pain. You cannot say that chairs in general are not for sitting. No matter how many instances of chairs you take and prove that you cannot sit on them comfortably, you could spend your whole lifetime trying to prove differently, and still you would not untie the union between chairs and sitting. The artifact and affordances are chained together as Latour [START_REF] Latour | Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory[END_REF] stated: "[a] network element with strong properties of irreversibility and effects that transcend time and place."

It is exactly this fixed affordance-object union that critics tend to target. For instance, Jarzabkowski and Pinch [START_REF] Jarzabkowski | Sociomateriality Is "the New Black": Accomplishing Repurposing, Reinscripting and Repairing in Context[END_REF] note that: a chair affords more activities than the designed purpose of sitting, such as being repurposed as a step for reaching a high object, as a lock under a door handle, as firewood when broken, or even, imaginatively, as a shield for modesty, as so aptly illustrated in Lewis Morley's iconic 1963 photo of Christine Keeler in the aftermath of the Profumo affair. Yet, such repurposing, while enabled by the many creative impulses of human action, is not infinite. (p. 582) In summary, this stance attributes the relationship between a class of artifacts and a sociocultural convention. From a temporality view, social convention leads to canonical use of affordances, it rarely expires, and it is relatively universal. Users share the cultural understanding of the affordances that have been established for a long timein some cases already by our ancestors. Many of the previous studies in IS consider a similar stance where affordances of technology are taken for granted, in other words, affordances are canonical by nature. The main limitation of this stance is when affordance is defined prior to design and action, residing in the objective world, it tends to lose human agency from the analysis.

Designed Affordances

The second stance, designed affordances, attributes the origin of an affordance to the design process. This stance is prevalent in the human-computer interaction (HCI) field; however, some works within IS also attribute to this stance. One appeal of the affordance concept has been in its possibility to theorize design. The theory of affordances was adopted into the design field specifically by the HCI community and was introduced by Norman [START_REF] Norman | Affordance, Conventions, and Design[END_REF]. Gaver [START_REF] Gaver | Technology Affordances[END_REF] formulated that affordances are "special configuration of properties", implying that "the physical attributes of the thing to be acted upon are compatible with those of the actor, that information about those attributes is available in a form compatible with a perceptual system, and (implicitly) that these attributes and the action they make possible are relevant to a culture and a perceiver" (p. 81).

While agreeing that affordances are relational, the HCI community deviated from the Gibsonian concept of the independent existence of affordances by asserting that affordances can be designed into an IT artifact [START_REF] Norman | Affordance, Conventions, and Design[END_REF]. The concept of "spirit" in adaptive structuration theory -"the general intent with regard to values and goals underlying a given set of structural features" [START_REF] Desanctis | Capturing the Complexity in Advanced Technology Use: Adaptive Structuration Theory[END_REF] (p. 126) -bears similarities with this stance. In related terms, Redström [START_REF] Redström | RE:Definitions of Use[END_REF] refers to "defining use through design" (p. 413).

Designed affordances have a similar feature (or a problem) as with the previous stance. It has the tendency to unite objects with actions a priori. Any attempt to escape such conceptual marriage tends to result in the generation of "laundry lists of the possible affordances in objects" [START_REF] Jarzabkowski | Sociomateriality Is "the New Black": Accomplishing Repurposing, Reinscripting and Repairing in Context[END_REF] (p. 583). For instance, Czarniawska [START_REF] Czarniawska | Organizations as Obstacles to Organizing[END_REF] provided eighteen items in a "tentative list of the uses of computers in the workplace" (p. 20), that includes "elements of decoration", "desktop publishing," "scheduling (calendars)", and "objects for unloading aggressive feelings". This laundry-list problem was foreseen by Gibson [START_REF] Gibson | The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception[END_REF], who stated that "to perceive an affordance is not to classify an object" (p. 134). Citing Wittgenstein, he formulated that "you cannot specify the necessary and sufficient features of the class of things to which a name is given. … You do not have to classify and label things in order to perceive what they afford" (p. 134).

In summary, this stance emphasizes the relationship between designers, artifact, and imagined users. With imagined users we refer to users the designer has had in his or her mind. It therefore refers to a decontextualized environment. From a temporality view, designers embed affordances in the artifact. The affordances exist independent of actual users and never expire, but this is not universal. The affordances can be utilized in a particular situation; however, users should be able to perceive, and the cultural background can influence the perception. Furthermore, the affordances are named by designers in most cases. There are several studies in IS that implicitly fall in this category, although the scholars advocate for perception and actualization of affordances in situ. The main limitation of this stance is when affordance is defined prior to action it discards the possibilities of the emergence of new affordances in practice. The emergent affordances are either named "false affordances" [START_REF] Gaver | Technology Affordances[END_REF] or "unfaithful use" [START_REF] Desanctis | Capturing the Complexity in Advanced Technology Use: Adaptive Structuration Theory[END_REF]. The third stance described in the next section attempts to address the issues of a priori vs emergence; the third stance somehow reconciles designers' and users' perspective.

Potential Affordances

Affordances are an ever-present potential for action in the 'potential affordances' stance [START_REF] Majchrzak | Technology Affordances and Constraints in Management Information Systems (MIS)[END_REF]. The details of its actualization in a specific instance are contingent on aspects of the techno-organizational context, and thus the outcome is indeterminate [START_REF] Zammuto | Information Technology and the Changing Fabric of Organization[END_REF][START_REF] Volkoff | Critical Realism and Affordances: Theorizing IT-Associated Organizational Change Processes[END_REF]. Thus, affordances are a type or subset of generative mechanisms. When the object of study is information technology, and the question relates to how the introduction of that technology affects an organization, the more focused nature of the affordance concept is suggested. Affordance exists at what critical realists refer to as the domain of the real. Someone who is capable of performing the actualization must exist for the affordance to have any meaning, but that person need not be identified. "The affordance will not be actualized (brought into the domain of the actual) unless there exists someone who in addition to having the necessary capability also has an intention or goal that is served actualizing the affordance" [START_REF] Volkoff | Critical Realism and Affordances: Theorizing IT-Associated Organizational Change Processes[END_REF] (p. 822).

One ontological view that supports the potential affordances stance is critical realism [START_REF] Volkoff | Critical Realism and Affordances: Theorizing IT-Associated Organizational Change Processes[END_REF]. From a critical realist perspective, understanding the organizational effects/outcomes associated with introducing new structures (e.g. new information systems) and how they occur can be viewed as understanding the generative mechanism associated with those structures [START_REF] Mutch | Technology, Organization, and Structure -A Morphogenetic Approach[END_REF]. These mechanisms are uncovered through retroduction [START_REF] Bygstad | Identifying Generative Mechanisms Through Affordances: A Framework for Critical Realist Data Analysis[END_REF], a process of working backward from the empirical events we observe to the underlying mechanisms that could logically have produced those events. From a critical realism perspective, affordances arise from the relation between a structure or object and a goaldirected actor or actors. In IS, critical realism defines affordance as the potential for behaviours associated with achieving an immediate concrete outcome and arising from the relation between the material object and a goal-oriented actor or actors [START_REF] Volkoff | Critical Realism and Affordances: Theorizing IT-Associated Organizational Change Processes[END_REF].

From the three layers of critical realism, an affordance can be categorized as possessed but unexercised, exercised but un-actualized (or partly actualized), and actualized but not necessarily empirically observed. The critical realism stance tries to find a trade-off between a realist view that affordances exist independent of users and an idealist view that affordances exist in the mind of users [START_REF] Zammuto | Information Technology and the Changing Fabric of Organization[END_REF], [START_REF] Mutch | Technology, Organization, and Structure -A Morphogenetic Approach[END_REF].

In summary, this stance follows a relational ontology between artifact and actual users (individual or collective). From a temporality view, affordances remain latent until they are perceived and actualized by an individual or group of users, and the affordances can be realized time and time again.

Majchrzak and Markus [START_REF] Majchrzak | Technology Affordances and Constraints in Management Information Systems (MIS)[END_REF] provided a formulation of the Technology Affordances and Constraints Theory (TACT) in this way:

One TACT researcher may describe how an organization uses the affordances of electronic communication technology to keep projects going non-stop: At the end of a work day, one co-located team "passes" the project to another co-located team just starting its workday elsewhere in the world. Another TACT researcher may determine that electronic communication technology affords development of shared identity in some virtual teams, while affording the development of enhanced individual self-efficacy in another.

The perception of affordances is influenced by the sociocultural or organizational contexts. Affordances do not expire and they exist in a particular context. Other assumptions are as follows: users have a shared cultural understanding, the affordances are named by actual users and designers, and perceived affordances can be different than the designed ones. This stance seems to be prevalent in the IS context [START_REF] Volkoff | Critical Realism and Affordances: Theorizing IT-Associated Organizational Change Processes[END_REF], [START_REF] Bygstad | Identifying Generative Mechanisms Through Affordances: A Framework for Critical Realist Data Analysis[END_REF], [START_REF] Seidel | Sensemaking and Sustainable Practicing: Functional Affordances of Information Systems in Green Transformations[END_REF].

A counterview for this stance would be that of an ever-changing world. For example, in their book Sociomaterial-Design, Bjørn & Østerlund [START_REF] Bjørn | Sociomaterial-Design[END_REF] argued that "it doesn't make sense to talk about specific affordances and constraints associated with particular types of artefacts" (p. 93). Instead, their approach emphasizes the entanglement and bounding of objects in human practices. They argue that "any artefact is part of larger and smaller entanglements, and thus bounding, shifting -and sometimes conflictingaffordances and constraints may be associated with the same artefact. This means that there is no direct causal link between the artefact and particular affordances and constraints". This stance counts potential action as affordances; on the other hand, the fourth stance discussed in the next section regards affordances as a completed action and doesn't consider perceived or latent affordances in its valid list.

Affordances as Completed Actions

The fourth stance takes an enactive approach [START_REF] Flint | Enactive Appropriation[END_REF], which understands affordances as completed actions within social practices. This view can be seen as rooted in pragmatism and builds on Shotter's [START_REF] Shotter | Duality of Structure" and "Intentionality" in an Ecological Psychology[END_REF] definition that "an affordance is only completely spec-ified as the affordance it is when the activity it affords is complete" (p. 27). A consequence and a major advantage of this approach is that it is by far the most relational and co-constructive of all these stances. A focus on completed actions includes the conventional and the novel, the routinized and the experimental [START_REF] Glăveanu | What Can Be Done with an Egg? Creativity, Material Objects, and the Theory of Affordances[END_REF]. Costall and Richards [START_REF] Costall | Canonical Affordances: The Psychology of Everyday Things[END_REF] referred to this type is the following way (p. 91):

In such cases, affordances are not simply discovered, but nor are they mentally projected upon inherently meaningless things. They are negotiated. In such cases, the verb "affording" rather than the noun "affordance" is, therefore, by far the more appropriate term.

Therefore, a major deviation from other stances here is the rejection of realism -in other words, the idea that affordances are "out there". While realists would argue that affordances are seen, in the pragmatist and enactivist perspective affordances are seen as [START_REF] Flint | Enactive Appropriation[END_REF]. Flint and Turner [START_REF] Flint | Enactive Appropriation[END_REF] argued that this view attributes a "tight coupling between perception and action" (p. 48), so that "perception involves active exploration of the world rather than interpreting the patterns of light falling on the eyes" (p. 47).

When Gibson was in his early twenties, he was influenced by "two of the most radical intellectual movements of the early twentieth century, … pragmatism and Gestaltphenomenology" [START_REF] Reed | Gibson and the Psychology of Perception[END_REF] (p. 51). Of these two streams of thought, the American pragmatism of William James promoted antidualism -a central idea later adopted in the theory of affordances. William James was one of the central sources of inspiration for Gibson [START_REF] Reed | Gibson and the Psychology of Perception[END_REF][START_REF] Chemero | An Outline of a Theory of Affordances[END_REF][START_REF] Noble | Ecological Realism and the Fallacy of "Objectification[END_REF]. However, Noble [START_REF] Noble | Gibsonian Theory and the Pragmatist Perspective[END_REF] observed that Gibson was "impatient with philosophy" (p. 65). Hence, Gibson "neglected (rather than overlooked) the pragmatist perspective", causing pragmatism to be a "tacit … not reflexive" aspect of affordance theory (p. 66). We can take the example from Jarzabkowski and Pinch [START_REF] Jarzabkowski | Sociomateriality Is "the New Black": Accomplishing Repurposing, Reinscripting and Repairing in Context[END_REF] of a chair that is used as "a shield for modesty" (p. 582). Using a chair in this way is not a canonical affordance. Chairs are canonically made for sitting, not shielding for modesty. It also was not designer Arne Jacobsen's "spirit" that made this affordance the affordance it is. The chair was used creatively in a photographic shoot. This photograph helped in journalistic purposes to visualize the sexual scandal story between the 19-year model Keeler and a high-profile politician and is said to be a major contributor to the financial success for Arne Jacobsen's model 3170 chair. In the photo, the chair was part of the affordance relationship but not as a readymade affordance that was seen. It was seen as [START_REF] Flint | Enactive Appropriation[END_REF]. It was a co-constitutive element in the process of affording.

As another example, we can take practice-oriented studies of paper use in the office environment [START_REF] Sellen | The Myth of the Paperless Office[END_REF]. Yli-Kauhaluoma, Pantzar, and Toyoki [START_REF] Yli-Kauhaluoma | Mundane Materials at Work: Paper in Practice[END_REF] identified how paper affords six practices: social coordination, remembering, anticipation, sketching, modeling, verifying, and back-up practices. But where do these originate from? Is it the inventor of paper who prescribed that paper affords to "get ready for a particular task in the very near future" (p. 72) in an office setting? Unlikely. Such aspect is not a canonical feature of paper either. These affordances are results of creative co-construction between the paper and its users. It requires the seeing of paper as something meaningful within a social practice.

Researchers who seek explanatory and predictive theories (e.g. [START_REF] Weber | Evaluating and Developing Theories in the Information Systems Discipline[END_REF]) may see the completed action stance as limiting. This is due to the research focus that is put on actions already completed, as the name suggests. It is therefore in tune with Kierkegaard's famous proverb: "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards". Researchers aligning with this stance will adopt the affordance concept as a sensitizing device in constructing how particular people in a particular setting are able to accomplish what they do.

In summary, this stance sees the ontological relationship between an actual artifact and actual users (individual/collective) in a particular context. The artifact is embedded in social practices in which the affordance is achieved through action. From a temporality view, affordances emerged in practice and cannot exist independent of users. However, the affordances are not just about perception or emergence but should be a completed action. The affordances in this stance expire after the completion of the task. Furthermore, users name the affordances. There are few studies in IS that fall into this category. The main limitation of this stance is not considering the perceived affordances as affordances. In reality, a perceived affordance can be realized in the future. Likewise, it does not give a proper account to the designer's intention and material properties.

Concluding Discussion

The concept of affordance has entered IS research in many ways and has mostly been used to help understand and theorize some types of sociotechnical phenomena [START_REF] Markus | A Foundation for the Study of IT Effects: A New Look at DeSanctis and Poole's Concepts of Structural Features and Spirit[END_REF][START_REF] Leonardi | When Flexible Routines meet Flexible Technologies: Affordance, Constraint, and the Imbrication of Human and Material Agencies[END_REF][START_REF] Faraj | The Materiality of Technology: An Affordance Perspective[END_REF], [START_REF] Volkoff | Critical Realism and Affordances: Theorizing IT-Associated Organizational Change Processes[END_REF]. Recently, Majchrzak et al. [START_REF] Majchrzak | Designing for Digital Transformation: Lessons for Information Systems Research for the Study of ICT and Societal Challenges[END_REF] stated that affordance theory is "particularly well suited to help IS scholars build theory about ICT use" (p. 272). Some researchers have developed theoretical affordance models [START_REF] Volkoff | Critical Realism and Affordances: Theorizing IT-Associated Organizational Change Processes[END_REF], while others have studied associated affordances with various types of IT solutions [START_REF] Seidel | Sensemaking and Sustainable Practicing: Functional Affordances of Information Systems in Green Transformations[END_REF], [START_REF] Strong | A Theory of Organization-EHR Affordance Actualization[END_REF]. Yet others have taken the affordance concept as casual vocabulary, seeing no need to refer to Gibson or others [START_REF] Giesbrecht | Service Encounter Thinklets: How to Empower Service Agents to Put Value Co-Creation Into Practice[END_REF].

In this paper, we have reflected on the uses of the affordance concept in IS research. This quest fits Czarniawska's [START_REF] Czarniawska | Reflexivity Versus Rigor[END_REF] recent call for reflexivity in research, a task that often requires "conceptual cleaning" (p. 4). She argued that our analytical concepts often have "ceased to do their analytical work and became blunt tools" (p. 3). We suspected that the affordance concept has become a blunt tool with it referring to various types of phenomena that are seemingly similar yet different.

Affordance is a relational concept, but it is not clear what this "relation" is. We have demonstrated this through the four stances presented in this paper. Affordance theory promises to be of great value for the field of information systems. What are the implications of the four stances for future research applying this concept? We assume the concept will endure and evolve together with the developments within our field. Compared to the HCI and socio-technical perspective, affordance theory addresses another aspect surrounding the use of technology. Affordance theory aims to understand the relationship between the object/technology and the human actor using it. By focusing on this relationship, shown in Figure 1, affordance theory may help us create a nuanced picture of how technology affects the human actor and the usage of technology.

When the IS community adopted the concept of affordances, it retained its relational characteristic. In the IS literature, there is considerable debate on the ontological understanding of affordances [START_REF] Stendal | Analyzing the Concept of Affordances in Information Systems[END_REF]. The debate centres around the question: are affordances embedded in the artifact or do they emerge in practice. As indicated above, the relational ontology from the design perspective claims that affordances can be designed [START_REF] Norman | The Psychology of Everyday Things: Basic Books[END_REF]. In designing an IT artifact, designers keep an imagined user in their mind, although the context might be blurry [START_REF] Chemero | An Outline of a Theory of Affordances[END_REF]. Thus, affordances are embedded and exist independent of the user, but affordances have an impact only if the user perceives and actualizes them. By contrast, a use perspective of the relational ontology suggests that affordances emerge in practice in a particular context [START_REF] Zheng | Affordances of Social Media in Collective Action: The Case of Free Lunch for Children in China[END_REF].

Fig. 1 Existing IS stance on affordances (adapted from [START_REF] Stendal | Social Affordances for People with Lifelong Disability Through using Virtual Worlds[END_REF]).

We argue that the third stance is the most popular stance in IS research thus far (e.g. [START_REF] Volkoff | Critical Realism and Affordances: Theorizing IT-Associated Organizational Change Processes[END_REF], [START_REF] Bygstad | Identifying Generative Mechanisms Through Affordances: A Framework for Critical Realist Data Analysis[END_REF]). However, the perspective on "relational and temporal" ontology is singular. Singular in this context means, as shown in Figure 1, material properties (or technology capabilities/functionalities) exist together with goal-directed actors with abilities, and affordances emerge out of their relationship. Looking at the boxes of "relationship" and "affordances", it seems that the nature of relationship and affordances is singular.

Our study reveals that the conception of a "relationship" is rather complicated in affordance theory. For example, the relationship can be between a class of an artifact and a social convention; among designer, artifact and imagined users; between artifact and actual users; or between an artifact and another artifact. Furthermore, we realize that the temporality of affordances is rarely discussed in IS literature. The questions need clarification: Do affordances already exist "out there" and are actualized? Do they emerge in a sequence of perception and actualization? Or is affordance a result of a negotiated action that is successfully completed? This paper contributes by digging deeper into these issues and provides four stances to illustrate the multiple natures of that relationship and temporality of affordances. As mentioned earlier, we have not aimed to identify the "proper" stance when using affordance theory. However, we do stress the importance of being aware of the consequences of making a choice of stances when applying affordance theory in research.

Fifteen years ago, Orlikowski and Iacono's [START_REF] Orlikowski | Research Commentary: Desperately Seeking the "IT" in IT Research -A Call to Theorizing the IT Artifact[END_REF] study unfolded the singular view of the IT artifact and suggested multiple views: tool, proxy, ensemble, computational, and nominal. Our study took a similar approach in revealing multiple stances of affordances. In this paper, however, we haven't considered how multiple views of the IT artifact relate to multiple stances of affordances. This study is more focused on clarifying the relational and temporal ontology of affordances. We realize that the discussion of affordances without taking the IT artifact into account might not present the whole story. Therefore, exploring the link between different views of the IT artifact and four stances of affordances may be worthwhile to investigate in the future.

The implications of the four stances of affordances for further research are as follows. With regard to the first stance, it is worthwhile to explore the sociocultural setting preceding the current time of design and action. The notion of canonical affordances also requires us to explore how something canonizes. How does the artifact-action relationship become a canon? And how to break away from it if the canon has become a burden? In the second stance, researchers can explore how designers embed affordances in material properties and how their intention becomes appropriated in use. From the perspective of the third stance, researchers can study the process by which affordances have been perceived and actualized, and how multiple affordances emerged. The perception/actualization of affordances by individuals or collectives will also be a topic of interest. Based on our observations, most of the existing studies in IS fall in the third stance. Similarly, researchers in the fourth stance can look into how affordances occur in situated completed actions; there is a lack of such studies in IS.

Finally, temporality is an important avenue for future investigation. Involving time in the analysis will help us notice the "different moments in the unfolding biography of the artefact" [START_REF] Bloomfield | Bodies, Technologies and Action Possibilities: When Is an Affordance? Sociology[END_REF] (p. 429). Taking a dynamic affordance perspective will probably require both longitudinal and comparative research designs in empirical studies [START_REF] Van De Ven | Don't Do Longitudinal Research" Nonsense[END_REF][START_REF] Barley | Why the Internet Makes Buying a Car Less Loathsome: How Technologies Change Role Relations[END_REF]. Temporally and contextually sensitive analysing includes actors and artifacts in a process of affording [START_REF] Costall | Canonical Affordances: The Psychology of Everyday Things[END_REF] (p. 91). It is also important to maintain all these components throughout the period of investigation and in reporting [START_REF] Ramiller | Management Implications in Information Systems Research: The Untold Story[END_REF].

Table 1

 1

	summarizes the her-

Canonical affordance Designed affordances Potential affordances Affordances as completed actions Relational ontology

		Relation between	Relation between	Relation between	Relation	be-
		artifact class and	designer, artifact,	artifact and actual	tween artifact
		social convention	and imagined us-	users	and actual users
			ers
	Origin	Social conven-	Through design	Designed af-	Affordances ac-
		tion leads to can-	process designers	fordances were	tualized as a
		ons of af-	can embed af-	perceived and ac-	completed ac-
		fordances	fordances in the	tualized. Af-	tion in a particu-
			artifact	fordances can be	lar context
				appropriated
				based on users'
				perceptions
	Role of	Shared cultural	Anticipated per-	Perception and	Action (includ-
	agency	understanding	ception: intuitive design within	action: action is guided by visual	ing creativity and "unfaithful"
			shared cultural un-	cues	use)
			derstanding
	Who	Cultural ances-	Designer or spon-	Users and de-	Users who com-
	names	tors	sor	signer	pleted an action
	Who	Anyone	Imagined or actual	Actual user	Affordances are
	receives		user		not received but emerge in per-
					formances
	When	Affordances do	Affordances do	Affordances do	Affordances ex-
	expire	not expire (reifi-cation)	not expire but are either actualized or	not expire but are either actualized	pire after action is completed
			not	or not
	Location	Impersonal, in	Latent in artifacts:	Latent in arti-	In active rela-
	of affordance	environment: af-universal, de-fordances are	potentially cross-ally situated in contextual, virtu-	facts: potentially actually situated cross-contextual,	tionships: situ-ated in context
		fined at the level	context	in context
		of a species
	Examples	"Chairs are for	"I designed this ar-	"I used an artifact	"I accomplished
		sitting"	tifact for you to act	to do a task it is	a task with the
			in a particular	made for"	help of one or
			way"		several	arti-
					facts"
	Table

The 'affordances' of, say, a chair, a post-box or a cigarette are not reducible to their material constitution but are inextricably bound with specific, historically variable, ways of life. We therefore need to better acknowledge what lies beyond the here-and-now timeframe adopted by most analyses conducted in terms of affordances. (p. 427)

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/These_Boots_Are_Made_for_Walkin'.