Organization and Time

"Observed through a temporal lens, organizational life fluctuates among moments of instantaneity, enduring continuity, and imagination of distant times. This movement stems from the fact that actors are continually faced with multiple intersecting temporalities, obliging them to make choices about what to do in the present, how to understand the past they emerge from, and how to stake out a possible future. Although scholars have widely recognized actors' multitemporal reality, it remains to be more fully theorized into an integrative framework. In this book, Tor Hernes takes up this challenge by combining foundational ideas from philosophy, sociology, and organization theory into an integrative theoretical framework of organizational time. Based on a review of the literature, his definition of time includes four dimensions: experience, events, resource, and practice. He provides examples of how these four dimensions evolve through mutual interplay and how they are underpinned by what he calls narrative trajectory. He then discusses implications for key topics in organizational research, including materiality, leadership and continuity and change. Organization and Time is for scholars and advanced students of organization studies, management studies, technology studies, and sociology"-- Provided by publisher Cover Organization and Time Copyright Preface Acknowledgements Contents List of Figures and Tables Figures Tables Introduction 1: A Review and Foundations of a Framework Introduction Social Time Temporal Reach Experience of Time Activity Time Time Structuring Synchronic and Diachronic Time Intertemporality Present-Past-Future Foundations of a Framework 2: Time-as-Experience Introduction The Passage of Time Experiencing the Passage of Time Shaping the Experience of Time Collectivizing Time-as-Experience Experiencing Distant Times 3: Time-as-Practice Introduction Practices as Stretched-Outnessof Time Practices as Reach-Outnessof Time 4: Time-as-Events Introduction The Indivisible Present Eventualization of Practices Singular and Exemplary Events The Intraconnecting of Events 5: Time-as-Resource Introduction Extending from Measured Time Composites of Time Temporal Templates 6: Themes of Interplay Introduction Simultaneous Interplay between Experience, Practice, and Resource Transitional Interplay between Practices and Resource Simultaneous Interplay between Practices and Distant Events Transitional Interplay between Practices and Events 7: Narrative Trajectory Introduction The reflexive shaping of time Configurational Event Narrative Trajectory from Within Narrative as Trajectory from Within Becoming of an Emplotted Narrative Trajectory 8: Changing in Time Introduction The Fallacy of Forward Causation Experiencing Time in Change From an Influence View to a Confluence View Continuous Change and Trajectoral Folds 9: Mattering of Time Introduction Historicizing through Materiality Materiality as Translator of Time Predicting the Past and Evoking the Future 10: Leading in Time Introduction Leading through Pasts and Futures The Leader as Time Symbol Leading in the Present 11: A Note on Studying Time in Time Introduction Confronting Temporal Distance The Double Post-Festum Drama Overcoming Synoptic Illusion Afterword References Index