From temporal myopia to foresight: Bridging the near and the distant future through temporal work

Research output: Journal contributionsConference abstract in journalResearch

Authors

This paper examines how organizations can make long-term, distant future goals related to corporate sustainability actionable in the short-term, near future. Prior research suggests that this challenge is particularly pronounced in traditional organizations used to operate within a highly institutionalized temporal context dominated by economic short-termism. We add to this research by empirically investigating different forms of temporal work at a big German automotive firm that currently undergoes a major strategic reorientation toward sustainability. Drawing on interview, documentary, and press data, we discover and theorize the interplay of four intersecting forms of temporal work: explicit vs. implicit and aspirational vs. translational temporal work. Importantly, we find that explicit-translational temporal work—which focuses on breaking down sustainability goals into KPIs—in itself was not sufficient for deep-level strategic change. Only when it was coupled with more implicit and aspirational forms of temporal work, such change was made more likely. We deepen current research on organizational temporality by theorizing the interplay between the four modes of temporal work and their relation to changing highly institutionalized temporal structures. Our theorizing sheds new light on how actors and organizations can build new trajectories of change by engaging in temporal work and how such trajectories can support the transition toward sustainability.
Original languageEnglish
Article number14570
JournalAcademy of Management Proceedings
Volume2021
Issue number1
Number of pages1
ISSN0065-0668
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 01.08.2021
Event81st Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management – AOM 2021: Bringing the Strategist Back to Practice: Communication Perspectives on Actorhood in Strategizing - Virtual, Briarcliff Manor, United States
Duration: 30.07.202103.08.2021
Conference number: 81
https://aom.org/events/annual-meeting
https://my.aom.org/program2021/
https://aom.org/events/annual-meeting/past-annual-meetings/2021-bringing-the-manager-back-in-management

Recently viewed

Researchers

  1. Matthias Wenzel

Publications

  1. Connected Text Reading and Differences in Text Reading Fluency in Adult Readers
  2. From Enterprise Architecture to Business Ecosystem Architecture
  3. Daily breath-based mindfulness exercises in a randomized controlled trial improve primary school children’s performance in arithmetic
  4. Advisory systems in pluralistic knowledge societies:
  5. Deeper Insights into Different Consumer Perceptions of CSR Communication
  6. Junior High School Students’ Length Estimation Skills and Use of Strategies for Making Estimations
  7. Two Readings of Bentham's Theory of Meaning as Applied to Moral and Political Discourse
  8. Introduction to Automatic Imitation
  9. Identifying core habitat before it's too late
  10. Creating Value from in-Vehicle Data
  11. Assessing the structure of UK environmental concern and its association with pro-environmental behaviour
  12. Towards Ecosystems for Responsible AI
  13. Second-Order Sliding Mode Control with State and Disturbance Estimation for a Permanent Magnet Linear Motor
  14. To use or not to use learning data
  15. Nitrate Pollution of Groundwater Long Exceeding Trigger Value
  16. Competence-Oriented Teaching
  17. How do distinct facets of tree diversity and community assembly respond to environmental variables in the subtropical Atlantic Forest?
  18. BBS futur 2.0
  19. A Multilab Replication of the Ego Depletion Effect
  20. The geometry of habitat fragmentation
  21. Early semantic activation in picture processing
  22. Current Trends in Environmental Cost Accounting - and its Interaction with Eco-Efficiency Performance Measurement and Indicators
  23. On "Sourcery," or Code as Fetish
  24. Precision Denoising in Medical Imaging via Generative Adversarial Network-Aided Low-Noise Discriminator Technique
  25. "Wen feiern wir denn eigentlich?"
  26. Proposing a social-ecological framework for successful grassland restoration in Germany—an overview and insights from the Grassworks project
  27. Acting in the Name of Others
  28. From the Precariat to the Multitude
  29. Can we represent future generations in myopic democracies?
  30. Media Review: Extrapolations - A View from OS4F
  31. Gender Matters in Language and Economic Behaviour
  32. Students’ Beliefs About Trigger Warnings
  33. Restricted nonlinear approximation
  34. Crown size-growth relationships of European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) are driven by the interplay of disturbance intensity and inter-specific competition
  35. Consumer information problems
  36. Addressing social representations in socio-technical transitions with the case of shale gas
  37. Narcissists and their influence on firm performance and reporting practices – a systematic literature review and future research agenda
  38. Robust Current Decoupling in a Permanent Magnet Motor Combining a Geometric Method and SMC