Posthuman Gateways of Organizing. Exploring Time/Space Multiplicities in Medical Rehabilitation Work with Robots

We contribute to the nascent posthuman debate in management and organization studies by elaborating a process- based organizational perspective of the Deleuzoguattarian notion of ‘multiplicity’. From this perspective, we envision work as a rhizomatic process of becoming, and we focus its open temporal and spatial dynamics as the generative source of action and movement that characterizes it. In doing so, we aim at advancing the understanding of how diachronic and diatopic multiplicities of work and organizing unfolds in more-than-human work and organizing. By focusing on temporal and spatial multiplicities of work, we acknowledge that change (movements) does not take place in the vacuum: rather, spaces are the situated contexts where flows happen (and the other situated contexts where flows are not happening), as flows are affected by when/where they take place, and by the socially constructed meaning of those places. From this perspective, work is a patchwork of temporal and spatial relations, where any time/space is connected to innumerable times/spaces, such as in pasts and in futures, and in presence and in absence. By relying on vignettes from a qualitative study of rehabilitation work with robots, we show how these time and space ‘doors’, ‘bridges’, and ‘passageways’, some of them hidden or subterranean, are analytical gateways of more-than-human work. We make three contributions to the existing literature. Firstly, we elaborate an organizational perspective on the Deleuzoguattarian notion of multiplicity, that has not been extensively studied by organizational scholars. Secondly, we contribute to the organizational debate on time and space by explaining how time and space ‘doors’, ‘bridges’, and ‘passageways’ are analytical gateways of work and organizing, contending that theoretical interpretations and design opportunities for human- robotic work processes should be envisioned by looking jointly to space and time. Thirdly, we contribute to the understanding of how the adoption and use of robots in high-tech workplaces are shaped by actors’ personal imaginary by way of these time and space ‘doors’, ‘bridges’, and ‘passageways’, such as the anticipation of futuristic robotic interactions or the recollection of past experiences, both influencing the nuanced interplay between humans and machines.