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Purpose – In this chapter, we outline early sociological thinking on time rooted in various philosophies of time and review the relatively current research in the area of temporal perspective. Next, we define the scope of the social psychology of time and illustrate how and why social psychology has failed to properly and effectively include time as a central component of study. Finally, we link current thinking about time to group processes research, most directly to identity and social identity processes (though not exclusively), making clear the ways current and future approaches could benefit from including temporal perspectives.

Methodology – We review relevant research engaged with concepts related to time in psychology, sociology, and social psychology. On the foundation of our review and the identification of gaps in the literature, we provide insights and recommendations regarding how temporal perspectives may be adopted by existing knowledge bases in sociological social psychology.

Findings – As a conceptual chapter, this work presents no empirical findings. A review of the literature reveals a scarcity of research effectively embedding temporal perspectives in major areas of social psychological research.

Practical Implications – The recommendations we make for connecting temporal perspectives to existing research areas provide a practical foundation from which to develop new ideas.

Social Implications – This work contributes to the social psychology of time by detailing how time is an important, yet mostly overlooked, component to our understandings of many social psychological processes. In the effort to extend identity and social identity theory in specific, we add to the general knowledge of the self and self-processes via the incorporation of temporal perspectives.

Originality – This work is the first to explore how temporal perspectives in sociological social psychology are employed, but mostly, how they are underutilized. We make recommendations for how novel theoretical predictions may emerge by including perspectives about time in existing research programs.

Temporary and permanent organisations have contrasting yet co-dependent perspectives regarding time; temporary organisations are made to ‘die’, yet most of them exist to enable permanent organisations to ‘survive’. The authors studied the temporal tensions of strategic initiatives – that is, temporary organisations that aim to implement strategic change in permanent organisations. Our empirical data identified three temporal tensions emerging when senior managers timed their strategic initiatives: ambition versus realism when enacting the time horizon, patience versus urgency when enacting the pace, and clock time versus event time when enacting the temporal perspective. By evoking the literature on paradox and temporal work, the authors extend the view of temporality at the temporary and permanent interface and indicate how temporal work played an important role in creating, reinforcing, or transforming temporal tensions. The authors conclude by providing implications for theory and practice.

As the workforce is aging and becoming increasingly age diverse, successful aging at work has been proclaimed to be a desirable process and outcome, as well as a responsibility of both workers and their organizations. In this chapter, we first review, compare, and critique theoretical frameworks of successful aging developed in the gerontology and lifespan developmental literatures, including activity, disengagement, and continuity theories; Rowe and Kahn’s model; the resource approach; the model of selective optimization with compensation; the model of assimilative and accommodative coping; the motivational theory of lifespan development; socioemotional selectivity theory; and the strength and vulnerability integration model. Subsequently, we review and critically compare three conceptualizations of successful aging at work developed in the organizational literature. We conclude the chapter by outlining implications for future research on successful aging at work.

The central focus of this chapter is the mutually constitutive relationship between time and group interaction. Groups shape individuals' experiences of time and individuals' experiences of time enable and constrain their group interactions. The chapter begins with a brief history of time in groups to situate early concerns which still shape many contemporary investigations, and then examines several theoretical perspectives as well as midrange frameworks and constructs which inform research on time and group communication. The chapter concludes with a summary and directions for future research in the area.

Italian worker cooperatives display a high proportion of profits reinvested into asset locks: there is some literature investigating their function, but little has been said about workers' attitude toward them. In this chapter we therefore investigate what workers' motivations are regarding reinvesting profits into asset locks. We propose to interpret them as a common good and we inquire which factors may increase workers' willingness to contribute to it. We test two arguments that are provided in the literature on collective action: the effect of having a long-time perspective within the cooperative and the effect of displaying “collective” motivations and preferences other than self-regarding. We perform this test by means of a survey among workers of cooperatives affiliated to Legacoop Ravenna in Italy.

We identify a positive effect of both factors, although with some distinction. At a first glance, we find a positive correlation between a longer time horizon and a greater concern for profit reinvestment; when looking closer at the data, we nevertheless see a more complex relationship as two other aspects come into the game: the employment insurance role of worker cooperatives and the “feeling of belonging” that links workers to the firm. The positive effect of this second aspect on the willingness to reinvest into locked assets is strong, although it only appears among worker-members. Moreover, its effect seem to become greater as workers' involvement in decision making increases.

This chapter investigates how normative beliefs attributed to insecure paid work and care responsibilities affect social understandings of the work–family boundary, and either challenge or reinforce traditional links between gender and moral obligation.

Within an interpretive approach and from a gender perspective, I present a discourse analysis of 41 interviews with Italian parents.

This chapter shows that women in the sample felt forced into blurred boundaries that did not suit their work–family normative beliefs. Men in the sample perceived that they had more boundary control, and they created boundaries that support an innovative fatherhood model. Unlike women, men’s boundaries aligned with their desires.

The specific target of respondents prevents empirical comparisons between social classes. Moreover, the cross-level analysis presented is limited: in particular, further investigation is required at the level of organizational cultures.

The study suggests not only thinking in terms of work–family boundary segmentation and integration but also looking at the normative dimensions which can either enhance or exacerbate perceptions of the work–family interface. The value of the study also stems from its theoretically relevant target.

Achieving temporal synchronization may require that work groups develop shared cognitions about the time-related demands they face. We investigated the extent to which group members developed shared cognitions with respect to the three temporal perceptions: time orientation (present vs. future), time compression, and time management (scheduling and time management). We argue that group members are more likely to align their perceptions to temporal characteristics of the group or organizational context (e.g. time compression, scheduling, proper time allocation) rather than to each other’s individual time orientations. Survey data collected from 104 work groups are largely consistent with these expectations. The implications of shared cognitions on time for work group functioning and performance are discussed.

This chapter uses a system dynamics approach to do a constructive replication (Lykken, 1968; Kelly, Chase, & Tucker, 1979; Hendrick, 1990) and extension of Reeves-Ellington's (this volume) timescape theory illustrated in his case study carried out at different hierarchical levels in Procter & Gamble. The timescape theory of temporal fit consists of two time perspectives – business time and social time – that compete for application. The senior-management level plays a key role in determining which timescape dominates. Reeves-Ellington argues that his findings show that organizational performance diminishes when there is a lack of fit between the timescapes of senior management and those of other levels of management. Our system dynamics model tests this notion and finds that the timescape case does not allow sufficient time to clearly demonstrate the hypothesized fit effects. In addition to timescape fit, environmental consumer demand aspects, which were not considered in the original case, are argued to affect Reeves-Ellington's performance measures. The system dynamics model's general emphasis on temporality and feedback provide especially for the constructive replication and extension of the timescape theory.