Time Machines: The Relationship between Technology and Temporality

The purpose of this symposium is to explore the relationship between time and technology in our processes of work and organizing. We wish to deepen our theoretical understanding about this relationship by investigating it across multiple levels of analysis and in various contexts and conditions. Our symposium does so by drawing on fascinating studies that span different contexts, including technology hackathons, artificial intelligence for music, the Swiss watchmaking industry, virtual teams during the COVID-19 pandemic, and hotel management. By drawing on this empirical research and making connections across contexts, this symposium offers insights into how members of today’s workplaces relate to the technologies that constitute their everyday lives, whether and how they accept them and their consequences as a legitimate part of what their world should look like, and which temporalities – be it excitement for modernization or profound wistfulness for a bygone age – therein win out. At stake is the shape of our shared future: not only what worlds we will build, but also how we in turn will find ways to live within these worlds of our own making. Sustained paradox for strategic reorientation: Preserving the past and modernizing for the future Presenter: Ryan L. Raffaelli; Harvard U. Presenter: Richard DeJordy; California State U., Fresno Presenter: Rory Morgan McDonald; Harvard U. Augmenting or automating? Breathing life into the uncertain promise of artificial intelligence Presenter: Kevin Woojin Lee; New York U. Minimal and adaptive coordination: How hackathons’ projects accelerate innovation without killing it Presenter: Hila Lifshitz-Assaf; New York U. Presenter: Sarah Lebovitz; U. of Virginia Presenter: Lior Zalmanson; Tel Aviv U. Experimenting with virtual teamwork: Learnings from how teams adapted their activities during COVID Presenter: Ashley Whillans; Harvard Business School Presenter: Aurora Turek; - Presenter: Leslie Perlow; Harvard U. Temporal burdening and temporal commitment: How technology and time serve Ideal Workers Presenter: Melissa Mazmanian; U. of California, Irvine Presenter: Christine Beckman; U. of Southern California