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Little is known about temporal trends in the intensification of work in America, or its determinants. This study analyzed two representative samples of the American labor force, and found that the pace of work increased significantly between 1977 and 1997. In a decomposition analysis, two-thirds of the increase in work intensification was attributable to objective economic changes, in particular job complexity and the length of work schedules. Future research should further explore the role of technology in quickening the pace of work, but not ignore the possibility that the demands of family life also affect perceptions of work intensification.

Drawing from findings in sociology and anthropology on time as a symbol of status, this paper examines the role that status differentials affect how group members internally align the pace of their activities over time (group synchronization). We examine the psychological process of group synchronization from the perspective of the individual, the nature of status differentials in work groups, and how one’s status within a group affects a person’s willingness to adjust the timing of his/her activities to match other people’s timing. We then identify three types of status structures within work groups and analyze how each affects the group’s ability to synchronize. We close by considering the implications of our approach for better understanding temporal dynamics in work groups.

Previous research suggests that teams pace their change either internally to coincide with the midpoint, deadline, or task phases, or externally by entraining to exogenous pacers. Other research suggests that teams adapt to random environmental shocks. This paper investigates if, how, and when endogenous, exogenous, and random pacers affect the patterns of change in groups. We studied five software development teams during a turbulent two-year period. Our case studies and supporting analyses suggest that teams perform a “dance of entrainment”—simultaneously creating multiple rhythms and choreographing their activities to mesh with different pacers at different times.

Consecration represents the most definitive form of legitimation in every cultural field. Complementing previous research focused on individual, contextual, and structural conditions underpinning consecration, this paper takes a sequence analytical perspective and explores whether diverse creative trajectories are more frequently associated with consecration. We introduce the notion of signature style and the pace of category spanning as key features for consecration. We argue that a consecrated signature style is just as likely to result from a producer’s adherence to a specific style over time or from a consistent (and fast-paced) category-spanning creative trajectory. The resulting identity will be specialist in the first case, eclectic in the second. We analyze the stylistic trajectories of 863 electronic music artists and find robust support to our hypothesis. The analysis is corroborated by further exploratory findings that identify intriguing questions for future research. By examining the organization of creative journeys in the career of cultural producers, this paper emphasizes the importance of considering the unfolding and rhythm of creativity over time. This temporal perspective sheds new light on the dynamics of distinctiveness and consecration in cultural fields.

I was surprised and delighted to be asked to write the final chapter of a book on groups. I certainly thought of myself as a “groups person,” but I was never quite sure that anyone else did. My research image is much more tied to organization theory and strategy. But the reality is that much of my work – from strategic decision making and product development to acquisitions and cross-business synergies – often does deal with groups. Although these more macro-level topics are in the foreground, groups are very often the backdrop.

This study compares U.S. firm international strategies between two starkly different industries. We find that firms are more inclined to adopt global strategies in the integrated global industry than in the multidomestic industry. The global strategy does not seem to be effective unless a firm possesses substantial intangible assets. R&D-based intangible assets play a more significant role than marketing-based intangible assets in both the integrated global industry and (to a lesser extent) the multidomestic industry. Additionally, internationalization pace has a positive direct impact, and a negative interaction effect with the global strategy on firm performance in the integrated global industry.

Prior research into multinational enterprises’ (MNEs) entrepreneurial initiatives has drawn from various theoretical bases, including entrepreneurial cognition, knowledge-based view, and management control theory. Empirical studies and cases have consistently pointed to the temporal dimension, highlighting the dynamic elements of learning, capability development and evolution, and consequences of conflict. By incorporating theory on time use into the analysis, we develop a new theoretical insight regarding the temporal dimension of MNE entrepreneurial initiatives. Our analysis offers a basis for a more explicit focus on time use in studies of entrepreneurial initiatives in MNEs than has been offered to date. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

This study investigated how college students’ pace of life and perceptions of communication technologies shape the choices they make when engaging in mediated communication with their parents.

We conducted 21 interviews to explore how students’ understandings of various communication technologies, the rules and patterns of technology use in their families, and the circumstances surrounding their use of technologies while at college influence the number and type of media they use to communicate with their parents.

We found that perceived busyness and generational differences played a large role in limiting technologies used, with environmental factors, the purpose of communication, and complexity of message also contributing to technology choices.

This study extends media multiplexity theory by investigating media choice and relational tie strength in an intergenerational context.

We propose a generic algorithm for numerically accurate likelihood evaluation of a broad class of spatial models characterized by a high-dimensional latent Gaussian process and non-Gaussian response variables. The class of models under consideration includes specifications for discrete choices, event counts and limited-dependent variables (truncation, censoring, and sample selection) among others. Our algorithm relies upon a novel implementation of efficient importance sampling (EIS) specifically designed to exploit typical sparsity of high-dimensional spatial precision (or covariance) matrices. It is numerically very accurate and computationally feasible even for very high-dimensional latent processes. Thus, maximum likelihood (ML) estimation of high-dimensional non-Gaussian spatial models, hitherto considered to be computationally prohibitive, becomes feasible. We illustrate our approach with ML estimation of a spatial probit for US presidential voting decisions and spatial count data models (Poisson and Negbin) for firm location choices.