- It is historically grounded and longitudinal;
- It focuses on object-oriented, artifact-mediated activity systems as its main unit of analysis;
- It analyzes contradictions within and between activity systems as the driving force of change and development;
- It constructs future-oriented zones of proximal development in activity systems;
- It fosters and analyzes cycles of expansive learning, or “learning what is not yet there;”
- It uses and develops formative interventions such as the Change Laboratory as central methodological resource.