Polychronicity and temporal dimensions of work in learning organizations

Abstract

States that today, the corporate environment is characterized by complexity, uncertainty, contingency and evolution. In these conditions, the design of a learning organization should be based upon Einstein's conception of time, which represents a dramatic shift from our traditional organizations built upon Newton's time. In this research, the author defined nine temporal dimensions of organizational culture (for instance schedules and deadlines) which could be managed in order to facilitate change and learning and examined them in relation to individuals' polychronic behavior, a temporal orientation. Polychronic people do many things at once and experience time as a relatively intangible phenomenon that emerges from specific events. This empirical investigation shows that polychronic time use is related to several dimensions of temporal culture. These results can be used to make the development of learning organizations more effective, particularly when applied to human resource activities and programs.The control and management of time has always been a major preoccupation for organizations. In the view of executives of 50 of the largest US companies, time is a vital strategic element (Fortune, 1989). Stalk and Hout (1990) see time as the main competitive asset for many companies today. Examples of management processes and methods based on this concept and designed to improve company performance abound: the just-in-time method, flextime, job sharing (implying shared time), the shortening of design and production cycles, time and motion study, time management, deadlines, punctuality, speed of work, etc. (Bluedorn and Denhardt, 1988).In industrial societies, time has always been considered as a resource that must be saved and managed efficiently (as in the saying``time is money''). An extreme use of this conception is found in Taylor's scientific management, mainly through the study of time and motion. In addition, time is often cited as an important, and sometimes crucial, variable in the quality of the decisionmaking or planning process (Brown and Eisenhardt, 1997), in the motivation and performance of individuals or groups, and in the success of exchanges or negotiations in international trade.A number of authors have looked at the pressure that time puts on the nature and quality of decisions. March and Simon (1958), for instance, found

Polychronicity, Big Five Personality Dimensions, and Sales Performance

“…They also found that polychronicity had low but significant correlations with achievement strivings (r = .18), impatience and irritability (r = .18), and the general hurry time urgency dimension (r = .16), all of which are subcomponents of the Type A behavior pattern (Landy, Rastegary, Thayer, & Colvin, 1991;Spence, Helmreich, & Pred, 1987). Benabou (1999) found that polychronicity was negatively and significantly related to preferences for working for a company that emphasized (a) punctuality, (b) schedules and deadlines, and (c) routines. A summary of the significant, empirical 428 CONTE AND GINTOFT relations between polychronicity and other variables is provided in Table 1, which provides an indication of the nomological net surrounding polychronicity.…”

Time for Reflection: A Critical Examination of Polychronicity

“…Thus, it is not surprising that polychronicity has fascinated both researchers and managers around the world (Canada: Benabou, 1999;France: Conte, Rizzuto, & Steiner, 1999; Germany: König, Bühner, & Mürling, 2005; Hong Kong: e.g., Zhang, Goonetilleke, Plocher, & Liang, 2005; Netherlands: e.g., Kaplan & Waller, 2007;Peru: Espinoza, 1999; Singapore: W. Lee, Tan, & Hameed, 2005;Switzerland: König et al, 2005; US: e.g., Bluedorn, 2002), who have lauded polychronicity as a key individual difference for performance in contemporary organizationsfor example, as an "important employee trait that has specific and clear relevance to the eclectic and fast-paced" work environment (Arndt, Arnold, & Landry, 2006, p. 320).…”

The Effects of Time Personality on the Productivity of MIS

“…The temporal dimensions have been validated and used as research instruments in other research fields, i.e. in organizational behavioral (Schriber et al, 1987) managerial psychology (Benabou, 1999) and anthropology (Hall, 1976). The perception of time by a specific individual manager, and hence the degree of poly-/monochronicity, is influenced by culture, the social groups to which the manager belongs and an individual's personality (Cotté et al, 1999).…”