Time perspective balance and team adaptation in dynamic task contexts

Abstract

Summary The concept of time perspective balance has attracted increased attention from scholars in the past decade, reflected in published evidence suggesting positive outcomes ranging from enhanced mood to life satisfaction for those individuals possessing balance among their past, present, and future time perspectives, and assumedly able to shift their time perspective to match situational demands. In this paper, we consider the notion of time perspective balance in an organizational setting within which much consequential adaptation often occurs—the team environment—and explore different configurations of time perspective balance in teams facing dynamic task contexts. Drawing from work on situational awareness, we first consider the mechanism by which time perspective balance likely influences individual adaptation in dynamic task‐focused situations. Next, we postulate what types of team configurations—ones with more balanced time perspective uniformity or ones with more time perspective variety—might be more appropriate in dynamic contexts given key team conditions. We illustrate our analysis with examples from healthcare team settings and offer ideas for future research.

I Left Venus and Came Back to Mars: Temporal Focus Congruence in Dyadic Relationships Following Maternity Leave

“…We demonstrate the importance of an individual's temporal focus relative to the temporal focus of important dyadic partners (line managers) and the potential for this to impact resocialization outcomes. In particular, our data illustrate the potential for (in)congruence in temporal focus to impact relational and career related outcomes and contributes to our nascent understanding of temporal focus fit (Briker, Walter and Cole 2020;Waller, Franklin and Parcher 2020). Second, building on recent work on the variant outcomes of past, present and future temporal foci (e.g.…”

“…Specifically, we show how positive relational outcomes most typically arise for mutual benefactors, characterized by alignment in temporal focus that appreciates and balances the past, present and future. We extend work by Briker et al (2020) and Waller et al (2020) on the consequences of (mis)fit of past temporal focus between leaders and their teams and suggest that, in this context, alignment in a general sense exerts an influence and it is not restricted to alignment of a single temporal lens.…”

“…Moving beyond individual temporal foci, we argue that any mismatches in subjective views of time within teams, or between managers and their teams, may illicit negative reactions that can significantly impact on work outcomes (Briker et al 2020, Eldor et al 2017. Recent evidence (Briker et al, 2020;Waller et al, 2020) suggests that incongruence in temporal focus may be relatively common and points to the need to examine the role of perceived incongruence or misfit in inhibiting team functioning.…”

“…There is also increasing recognition of the advantages of balancing multiple temporal foci, rather than individuals having a singular focus on past, present or future (Waller et al 2020). As our understanding of temporal focus develops, the significance of state or situational influences and the need to understand the social context of temporal focus has also been highlighted (Levasseur et al, 2020).…”

New perspectives on time perspective and temporal focus

“…In the second article, Waller, Franklin, and Parcher () address how balance in time perspective influences team adaptation in dynamic contexts. Using numerous examples from the literature on team dynamics, the authors suggest that task environment access, skill differentiation, and task interdependence are important team‐level conditions that moderate the fit of team‐level time perspective balance in dynamic environments.…”