In order to facilitate the implementation of replication strategies, organizations often use a variety of artefacts such as manuals and handbooks. Existing research has largely focused on the extent to which artefacts can act as knowledge repositories that help to facilitate replication. This body of literature has made significant contributions to our understanding of the role of replication, but has focused more on highlighting key challenges involved in the codification of knowledge. This paper demonstrates that artefact based replication is a double edged sword. While replication is enabled by, ‘configuring’ artefact-action relationships (focussing, situating, coordinating) our analysis also reveals that replication is constrained by ‘decoupling’ artefact-action relationships (accounting, differentiating, disengaging). Our findings contribute to research on replication and provide a more nuanced understanding of why the implementation of replication strategies might fail. We also add to the recent debate on socio-materiality in strategy research more generally.