It’s About Time: Temporal Structuring in Organizations

Critical Analysis

In this text, the authors argue that time is neither objective nor subjective; instead, it is enacted regularly, and so it is explicitly tied to situations and experiences.

Core to the author’s argument is the idea that time is structured by people. Temporal structuring shapes the way people engage with the world around them, and this structuring is produced and reproduced, continually, to help “guide, orient, and coordinate” ongoing activities. These temporal structures become taken for granted, “serving as powerful templates for the timing and rhythm of members’ social action within the community.” Enacted time is shaped historically, as people “routinely draw on common temporal structures that they (and others) have previously enacted to organize their ongoing practices.” These behaviors are self-reinforcing, and as they are routine, they are often taken for granted. They gain a sense of immutability, which “becomes particularly influential when certain temporal structures become so closely associated with particular social practices… that actors have little awareness of them as socially constituted, or of the possibility of enacting different temporal structures by changing social practices.”

Temporal structures overlap, and can be changed—they are “human accomplishments” and are “provisional.” Yet while they are malleable, they are embedded, and they may require a meaningful amount of concerted effort to change. Changes must be adopted, which means they cannot be forced, and people can always choose to reshape or ignore structures. Temporal structures are localized and enacted situationally, although they may become universally accepted within a community. Events may force a temporarily suspension of existing structures, or the creation of new structures, as with project deadlines slowly coming into focus as they approach.

Temporal structures are often taken for granted and feel fixed or obvious. These are particularly enduring and hard to change. Some delineations between overlapping structures are made obvious, such as “work/family balance,” indicating that people enact shifting time structures, purposefully. The idea of “time management” becomes questionable, as it is challenged by the social nature of temporal structures; management implies a sense of ownership, but time, as enacted, is a shared construct. Managers in organizations may prioritize “clock time,” while workers exist in multiple temporal structures that may not realize clock time as relevant at all; “such a narrow range of temporal structuring may promote an almost exclusive focus on exploitation.”

Research Value

The value of this work in informing my own research is that it:

• Reinforces chronopolitics as being a meaningful human construct (a forced temporal structure)
• Adds nuance to the “in-studio-all-the-time” expectation, and how it can be selectively ignored (but with great effort)