Organization and Management Theory OMT

Convenors
Blagoy Blagoev (Technical University Dresden, Germany)
Melissa A. Mazmanian (University of California, Irvine, USA)
Mar Pérezts (emlyon business school & OCE Research Center, France)

Call for Papers
Questions related to time and temporality have moved from the periphery to the core of organization studies. Scholars are increasingly drawing on a temporal lens as to examine a wide range of organizational phenomena, including strategy, innovation, routine dynamics, sustainability, identity, as well as work and occupations, to name but a few. This development is indicative of a profound and ongoing shift in how we think about time in organization studies: scholars are increasingly moving away from considering time either in terms of longitudinal studies (time as a background continuum) or as a phenomenon separate from organizing (time as an independent variable). Instead, they are beginning to study organizational phenomena as temporal(ized), i.e., as constituted in and through time.
 
This ongoing shift has inspired us, in this fourth sub-theme of the EGOS Standing Working Group (SWG) 01, to push the boundaries of how we think about organization and time, how we conceptualize their interconnections, and how we explore them empirically. We aim to do so by opening up the possibilities with "Time as X and X as Time", where our understanding of 'X' is enhanced by viewing it through a temporal theoretical and/or empirical lens, and conversely, where our understanding of time can, in turn, be enriched by what 'X' brings to the conversation. For example, one could imagine generative papers taking the perspective of "Power as Time and Time as Power;" "Time as Structure and Structure as Time;" "Time as History and History as Time;" or "Time as Affect and Affect as Time." That said, we are interested in all papers that take expansive and empirical perspectives on time in and around organizations.
 
Overall, we expect papers in this sub-theme to showcase the centrality of time across a wide range of organization theories (i.e., how time can become a more central element in organizational studies as a whole) and phenomena (i.e., what is gained by temporalizing our understanding of organization and organizing). In addition to pursuing the established scholarly work on the importance of time in well-trodden areas such as strategic change (e.g., Kunisch et al., 2017), process perspectives (e.g., Hernes, 2014), totalizing work regimes and overwork (Perlow, 1999; Blagoev & Schreyögg, 2019; Beckman & Mazmanian, 2020), we would welcome novel and less common lenses. We particularly value and encourage submissions that tackle unconventional, provocative, and challenging questions or approaches, in order to bring a whiff of fresh air while reflecting on time down 'roads less travelled by', to echo Robert Frost's poem.
 
Topics and questions that we look forward to discussing during this sub-theme could include, but are not limited to the following:

• Time use as a signal of identity, power, and performance in organizations (Feldman et. al., 2020).
• Specific facets or manifestations of time, such as speed, acceleration (Rosa, 2015; Rosa & Scheuerman, 2008), instantaneity, slowness, deceleration.
• The ongoing negotiation of past-present-future connections, not least in and through history (e.g., Suddaby, 2016; Mills et al. 2016; Wadhwani et al. 2018), events (e.g. Badiou, 2011; Hussenot & Missonier, 2016), or memory (e.g., Blagoev et al.,  2018).
• Tensions between the near and the distant future (e.g., Hernes & Schultz, 2020) and the performative effects of imagined futures in the present (e.g., Augustine et al., 2019).
• Issues of temporal patterning and temporal structuring (e.g., Orlikowski & Yates, 2002), in particular in complex and dynamic work settings (e.g., Kremser & Blagoev, 2021).
• The subjective (Shipp & Jansen, 2021) and affective dimensions of time, e.g., as related to boredom, ennui, spleen, alienation (for example, during the lockdown periods amidst the Covid-19 pandemic).
• Time and crisis management in relation to, e.g., pandemics, refugee crises, climate change and other 'urgent' grand challenges (e.g., Reinecke & Ansari, 2015; Slawinski & Bansal, 2015; Kim et al., 2019).
• Time and digitization, including big data, algorithms, surveillance capitalism, and real-time sociomaterial interactions.
• Time and materiality, including bodies, embodiment, and the senses as well as space and (de-)spatialization (e.g., Rodrigues Araujo, 2008; Steyaert, 2015; Hernes et al., 2020)
• Time-based control tools or processes: Just-in-time manufacturing, high-frequency trading, slow vs. fast food, artificial intelligence and predictive algorithms, real-time omnipresent surveillance, and generally to explore forms of "numericalization" (e.g. Pérezts, Andersson & Lindebaum, 2021) of time (even beyond clock-time) and time-based reifications.
  
  

The full call for papers can be found here.