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4 - Metaphysics of Tragedy, a Non-Dispositional View of Time

from Part I - The Politics of Time: Ontologies and Metaphysics of Organization as Time

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 June 2023

By
Rémy Conche
Edited by
François-Xavier de Vaujany ,
Robin Holt  and
Albane Grandazzi
François-Xavier de Vaujany
Affiliation:
Universite Paris Dauphine-PSL
Robin Holt
Affiliation:
Copenhagen Business School
Albane Grandazzi
Affiliation:
Grenoble Ecole de Management
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Summary

The history of management (and its science) could be seen as a long attempt to master or dominate time. Whether it is objective, subjective, social, or processual, time is conceptualized by management as a resource or as a place of creativity. Management sciences focus on individuals’ temporal agency over the agency of time itself. However, managers’ daily experience, the literature in social sciences (Rosa, 2003), or some authors in management science (Johnsen, Toyoki, 2019; Holt, Johnsen, 2019) show that individuals are not masters of time, and even may suffer from it. In this work we want to take seriously the agency of time itself, and build a new managerial posture where managers no longer dominate time but learn to “deal with it”. Our desire here is to build a theoretical framework that takes seriously the domination of time over us. From this negative conception of time, we want to redefine the process of temporal structuring as a way for individuals to inhabit it. The aim of this process is not to dominate time but to “deal with it”. This theoretical framework must be able to restore a balance between individuals’ temporal agency and the agency of time.

Keywords

Agency of timeTemporal agencyTragicNegativityMetaphysicsTemporality
Type
Chapter
Information
Organization as Time
Technology, Power and Politics
 , pp. 83 - 96
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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