Temporality in Organization Studies: Implications for Strategic Project Management

Abstract

Project managers require temporal skills and the ability to improvise when linear assumptions confront the complexities of managing projects within a context of strategic calculation. While the management and organization (MOS) literature emphasizes the importance of temporal skills for managing uncertainty, ambiguity and complexity, a dearth of project management literature contributes to this discussion. By reviewing literature on time in MOS and linking it to the field of project management we seek to make an initial bridge of this gap and argue that in order to improvise project managers need temporal skills. Project management practitioners and researchers work with assumptions of what constitutes normal time and linearity in projects, despite the variety of situations and events faced in projects. Practitioners, students and researchers in project management need to develop more sophisticated temporal skills to deal with a variety of projects, situations and events strategically.

Decoding secrecy as multiple temporal processes: Co-constitution of concealment and revelation in archival stories

“…Munn's (1992) work transforms the linear understanding of temporality: participants are not only 'in' time but also are constantly constructing their own time. That is, temporality is reflectively constituted by human actions, and experiencing of time is grasped through everyday practices (Biesenthal, et al, 2015). Drawing on this perspective, the potentiality of multiple temporalities in this Constituting the temporalization of past-present-future dynamics, perceptions and experience of the past involve actualizing it in the present, or in Munn's terminology 'temporalizing the past'.…”

Resilience and projects: An interdisciplinary crossroad

“…We leave it out because temporality, in fact, touches all of the levels at the same time when projects are conducted in their social settings, and, thus we embed temporality at all levels of analysis. We settle for stressing the importance of the topic and leave the actual theorizing for future research (interested readers can refer to insightful reviews on time and temporality in projects by Söderlund (2013) and Biesenthal et al. (2015) and in organization studies by Langley et al.…”

A Conceptual Exploration of a Collaborative Environment in the Construction Industry When Working With Temporary Socio-Technical Processes

“…One way that researchers have coped with complexity in the construction industry is to view the overall industry as comprising permanent and temporary networks (Dubois & Gadde 2002). This study adopts Biesenthal et al's (2015) use of the noun temporality when describing the condition of being limited in time. Construction firms are permanent, whereas projects are defined as temporary organizations with a start and an end (Biesenthal et al 2015).…”

“…This study adopts Biesenthal et al's (2015) use of the noun temporality when describing the condition of being limited in time. Construction firms are permanent, whereas projects are defined as temporary organizations with a start and an end (Biesenthal et al 2015). Projects are agengts of change in an organization, where the task is to transform an idea into a product in a given amount of time (Skyttermoen & Vaagaasar 2015).…”