Affordance Theory in the IS Discipline: a Review and Synthesis of the Literature

The growing interest of IS researchers in using the theory of Affordances for studying the uses and consequences of the IT artefact calls for an integrative view on the subject. The originating literature is dispersed and the definition of the concept of affordance varies in these studies. With this paper we offer a framework for organizing the existing interdisciplinary literature modeling affordances' manifestation as effects of actions. Using a structured methodology, we reviewed the titles and abstracts of 126 articles from IS, Organization Studies, and Management literatures and examine a subset of 25 articles. Our work makes three main contributions. First it formalizes the concept of affordance as instanced in the IS domain. Second, it organizes IS affordance studies around four main areas: affordance existence, affordance perception, affordance actualization, and affordance effect. Finally, it discusses the current limitations of Affordance studies and offers the basis for future research.