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Sub-theme 11: [SWG] Time and Organization Studies: Pacing Organizational Life Through Speed, Rhythms and Affective Duration

Convenors:
Christina Lüthy
Lund University, Sweden
Abbie Shipp
Neeley School of Business, US
Omid Omidvar
Warwick Business School, UK

Call for Papers

Call for short papers (pdf)

The second sub-theme of the SWG 11 on ‘Time and Organization Studies’ will focus on how speed, rhythm, and the affective experience of time impact organizing and organizational life. Speed has always been a critical component of organizing to produce organizational action in a “timely” fashion (Blagoev et al., 2024). In the context of acceleration (Rosa, 2013; Skade et al., 2020), changing technological landscapes (Wajcman, 2014)and disruptive events, understanding how organizations, teams and individuals can respond to, entrain with or escape and (re)define demands for timing, particularly pacing, is pivotal (Otto et al., 2024).

Responding to these temporal demands often involves more than just speed; it requires an attunement to the rhythms that shape and sustain organizational life (Omidvar et al., 2025; Shipp & Richardson, 2021; Stephenson et al., 2024). Rhythms have been shown to enable organizations to coordinate action, manage temporal complexity, align with environmental demands, entrain interdependent activities, navigate between competing temporal expectations, and shape temporal commons (Bluedorn & Waller, 2006). The notion of rhythm provides exciting avenues to investigate how temporality and entrainment emerge in practices, organizational rituals or routines and rely on embodied sensibilities to our environment.

Ultimately, the pacing of organizational life is grounded in the lived experience of ‘mundane time’ (Bailey & Suddaby, 2023; Turner & Rindova, 2018), where actors are not only subject to temporal pressures but actively work to inflect their own sense of duration (Kent & Granqvist, 2025). Through notions such as rhythms, moods, or atmospheres (Katila et al., 2020; Mohammed, 2019), research points to the affective dimension of temporal experiences. This suggests that individuals and collectives not only interpret and produce meaning around time cognitively, but that time also emerges in organizational life as a visceral and emotional experience that shapes how organizational actors engage in action and organizational change to pace their efforts (Shipp & Jansen, 2021).

Therefore, we invite submissions that explore speed, rhythms, and affective dimensions of time and pacing at work. We are interested in contributions that fall in line with the EGOS Colloquium 2027 general theme ‘The Game We Play: Re-Writing the Rules of Organization?’. Submissions could include the roles that events, rituals, and gamification play in shaping duration (Kent & Granqvist, 2025) or temporal tensions in and around organizations. We also invite the EGOS community to unfold what temporality scholars can learn about time by studying ephemeral, compressed and immersive experiences that are crafted in playful and gaming contexts or by studying the complex processes of organizing mega events. Submissions also might explore temporal work as a political game that creates winners and losers, by strategically including and/or excluding stakeholders. Or they might look into how new pacing norms as rules can be commoned (Bluedorn & Waller, 2006), and maintained against eroding pressures of hegemonic neoliberal ideals.

Moreover, we are interested in exploring organizational phenomena and challenges such as artificial intelligence or extreme events through the lens of speed, rhythms and affective duration. Algorithmic systems are accelerating decision-making, orchestrating work processes and routines, challenging and redrawing how work is organized, the rhythms and speeds at which it unfolds, and the ways actors affectively experience and attribute meaning to temporalities. Similarly, extreme events such as climate change and sustainability issues, geopolitical upheaval, and economic uncertainty are now commonplace, disrupting the mundane lived experience of time and begging for explorations of how individual and collectives cultivate temporal resilience in the face of the uncertain present and future.

Overall, we welcome qualitative, quantitative, and conceptual submissions engaging with these and other theoretical approaches that could explore, for instance, some of the following questions:

  • How are the pacing and speed of action (e.g., timeliness) created in teams and organizations in times of transformation or crisis through temporal work and temporal affordances?

  • How are rhythms fostered/disrupted in organizational life and how can individuals, teams and organizations entrain to, switch, and navigate the clashing of rhythms at different scales?

  • How (and why) do sequences and speed of activities at work help or harm individuals, teams, and organizations?

  • How do individual and collective perceptions of the past, present, and future shape pacing and rhythms in organizational efforts?

  • What role do durational experiences, rhythms and the pacing of work experiences play in shaping the meaning of time? How are they implicated in organizational cultures, professional identities, and individual well-being?

  • How are fantasy and desire implicated in the way that time and pacing is interpreted and affectively experienced on a subjective and intersubjective level?

  • What strategies and resources do individuals and marginalized groups use to subvert and resist dominant pacing norms to find their own rhythms?

  • How do alternative modes of organizing cultivate and draw on alternative experiences and patterns of time and timing?

  • How do AI and algorithmic systems reconfigure organizational rhythms, speed, and the affective experiences of time?

  • How do extreme events change the experience and meaning of time by disrupting speed, rhythms, and affective perceptions of time?

  • How can rhythms be used as a lens to analyze, unpack, and diagnose organizational and societal challenges and dysfunctions?

References
  • Bailey, C., & Suddaby, R. (2023). When time falls apart: Re-centring human time in organisations through the lived experience of waiting. Organization Studies, 44(7), 1033–1053.
  • Blagoev, B., Hernes, T., Kunisch, S., & Schultz, M. (2024). Time as a research lens: A conceptual review and research agenda. Journal of Management, 50(6), 2152–2196.
  • Bluedorn, A. C., & Waller, M. J. (2006). The stewardship of the temporal commons. Research in Organizational Behavior, 27, 355–396.
  • Katila, S., Kuismin, A., & Valtonen, A. (2020). Becoming upbeat: Learning the affecto-rhythmic order of organizational practices. Human Relations, 73(9), 1308–1330.
  • Kent, D., & Granqvist, N. (2025). Chasing storms: Temporal work to foster group engagement under uncertainty. Academy of Management Journal, 68(2), 380–408.
  • Mohammed, S. (2019). Unthinking images of time in organizations: ‘The shopping centre keeps time with a rubato waltz.’ Organization, 26(2), 199–216.
  • Omidvar, O., Hadjimichael, D., Burke, G. T., Pyrko, I., & Chia, R. (2025). Temporal patterns in management: Integrating perspectives on rhythms of work and organizing. Academy of Management Annals, 19(2), 861–902.
  • Otto, B. D., Schuessler, E. S., Sydow, J., & Vogelgsang, L. (2024). Finding creativity in predictability: Seizing kairos in chronos through temporal work in complex innovation processes. Organization Science, 35(5), 1795–1822.
  • Rosa, H. (2013). Social acceleration: A new theory of modernity. Columbia University Press.
  • Shipp, A. J., & Jansen, K. J. (2021). The “other” time: A review of the subjective experience of time in organizations. Academy of Management Annals, 15(1), 299–334.
  • Shipp, A. J., & Richardson, H. A. (2021). The impact of temporal schemata: Understanding when individuals entrain versus resist or create temporal structure. Academy of Management Review, 46(2), 299–319.
  • Skade, L., Stanske, S., Wenzel, M., & Koch, J. (2020). Temporary organizing and acceleration: On the plurality of temporal structures in accelerators. In T. Braun & J. Lampel (Eds.), Research in the sociology of organizations (Vol. 67, pp. 105–125). Emerald Publishing Limited.
  • Stephenson, K. A., Cornelissen, J. P., & Khapova, S. N. (2024). Upbeat or off-the-mark? How work rhythms affect strategic change. Journal of Management Studies, 61(8), 3653–3683.
  • Turner, S. F., & Rindova, V. P. (2018). Watching the clock: Action timing, patterning, and routine performance. Academy of Management Journal, 61(4), 1253–1280.
  • Wajcman, J. (2014). Pressed for time: The acceleration of life in digital capitalism. University of Chicago Press.


 

Christina Lüthy is a Postdoctoral Researcher and Browaldh fellow at Lund University School of Business and Economics with an interest in process theories and feminist scholarship. She explores entrepreneurship, organizing and collaboration, focusing on affective and temporal dimensions. Her work has appeared for example in 'Organization Studies', 'Human Relation' or the 'Journal of Management Studies'.
Abbie Shipp is Professor of Management at Texas Christian University, USA. Her research focuses on the experience of time at work including: the trajectory of work experiences over time, how time is spent on work tasks, and how individuals think about the past/present/future. Abbie’s research has appeared in books and journals such as the 'Academy of Management Review', 'Academy of Management Annals' or 'Human Relations'.
Omid Omidvar is an Associate Professor of Organization Studies at Warwick University. He investigates how the integration of algorithmic ensembles transforms decision-making, routines, and organizational adaptation, with particular attention to the temporal implications of these changes. Omid’s work has been published in outlets including the 'Academy of Management Annals', 'Organization Studies' and the 'Journal of Management Studies'.