It's About Time: Temporal Structuring in Organizations

TLDR

A focus on temporal structuring, combined with a practice perspective, allows us to bridge the subjective‑objective dichotomy that underlies much of the existing research on time in organizations. The paper proposes temporal structuring as a framework for understanding time as an enacted phenomenon, arguing that actors’ everyday actions produce temporal structures that shape organizational rhythms, and demonstrates its application in a prior empirical study. The authors develop the notion of temporal structuring and illustrate its use by analyzing how actors’ everyday actions generate temporal structures that influence organizational practices. The study concludes by outlining implications of temporal structuring for organizational research on time.

Abstract

In this paper we propose the notion of temporal structuring as a way of understanding and studying time as an enacted phenomenon within organizations. We suggest that through their everyday action, actors produce and reproduce a variety of temporal structures which in turn shape the temporal rhythm and form of their ongoing practices. A focus on temporal structuring, combined with a practice perspective, allows us to bridge the subjective-objective dichotomy that underlies much of the existing research on time in organizations. After developing the notion of temporal structuring, we illustrate its use in the context of a prior empirical study. We conclude by outlining some implications of temporal structuring for organizational research on time.