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It's About Time: Temporal Structuring in Organizations

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management (E53-325), 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142-1347
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management (E52-544), 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142-1347
wanda(mit.edu
jyates(mit.edu

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.

Key Words: Time; Temporal Structures; Structuring; Practice

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