The Role of Time in Theory and Theory Building

TLDR

Time has been treated as a boundary condition in theory, yet this paper argues that it should play a central role because it can alter the ontological description and meaning of constructs and their relationships. The authors propose that theorists explicitly embed multiple aspects of temporality into the what, how, and why of their theories, offering guiding questions and a process-oriented framework. They outline six key time dimensions—past, future, present, subjective experience, time aggregations, duration and rates of change, incremental versus discontinuous change, frequency, rhythms, cycles, spirals, and intensity—and provide a template for integrating these dimensions into theory building. The study demonstrates that explicitly incorporating time into theoretical analyses improves theorizing and yields new insights into ongoing debates in organizational literature.

Abstract

Although time has been included in theory and theory building as a boundary condition, this paper argues that time can and should play a more important role because it can change the ontological description and meaning of a theoretical construct and of the relationships between constructs. We suggest that theorists explicitly incorporate multiple aspects of temporality into the “what, how, and why” building blocks of their theories. First, we describe six important time dimensions that we propose are especially relevant to theory building about people, groups, and organizations: the past, future, and present and the subjective experience of time; time aggregations; duration of steady states and rates of change; incremental versus discontinuous change; frequency, rhythms, and cycles; and spirals and intensity. Second, we put forward a series of time-related questions that can serve as a guide or template for improving theory building through the incorporation of temporality into the what, how, and why of theories. Third, we propose how temporality can be incorporated into theorizing, viewed from a process standpoint. Lastly, we demonstrate how the explicit incorporation of time into theoretical analyses may not only lead to better theorizing and theories but also shed light on ongoing debates in the organizational literature.