About the Theme
The theme for the 2000 Academy meeting will be "A New Time." In this section we sketch out some of what we hope to achieve through the theme, as well as some of the ways in which the theme will be expressed in the Academy meeting and in other events. We welcome your comments, suggestions, and innovative ideas for expressing the theme. Please send them to Jean Bartunek.
This material will be "in construction" all the while we are preparing for the 2000 Academy Meeting.
The theme for the 2000 Academy of Management Meetings is "A New Time." This theme was chosen to take advantage of the year of the meeting and to stimulate and encourage new and creative thinking and research on time, an area of inquiry that plays important roles in both management research and practice, but that has not received as much scholarly attention as it warrants. The name of the theme also conveys that we will be attempting to implement some new ideas at the Academy meeting, especially aesthetic representations of the theme. Carrying out something "new" is a great way to welcome a new century.
Considerations of time are strongly bound up with the year 2000 and with the scientific contributions of the 20th century. They are also evoked by the new millennium (at least according to the Gregorian calendar) that will be occurring as we prepare for the Academy meeting. The academy meeting provides an ideal opportunity to explore dimensions of time and their implications for organizations.
Ways of dealing with time have played important roles in most scholarly disciplines throughout history. In addition, time is a topic that many management scholars talk about and that relatively few study in depth. But, it is popping up now in many interesting guises (e.g. polychronicity, entrainment), and has the potential to be studied in many new and creative ways. "A New Time" is a theme that, potentially, at least, invites creative exploration of this topic. It also suggests the value of acknowledging and learning from the diverse understandings of the Academy membership in different geographical locations around the world. Many of our different cultures (national, organizational, and individual workplace) operate out of differing construals of time. These can help make visible the implicit assumptions we tend to make about time and increase our appreciation of how social and technological contexts shape its enactment.
At this Academy meeting we do not want to focus on (chronological) time as simply another variable. Rather, we would like to focus on time in ways that will stimulate creative ways of thinking about, understanding, studying, and implementing time, in its qualitative and quantitative meanings. You can learn more about some of our ideas by looking at the calls for papers in AMJ, AMR, and AME.
The theme will be enacted in many ways at the Academy meeting, including aesthetically and scientifically. In addition, we invite papers and symposia that address time in a large number of ways. Some of the topics addressed might be:
Thanks
The development of any theme requires the assistance of a large number
of people. We are grateful to many people who have made very helpful suggestions
in the development of this theme so far. These include the entire Organization
Studies department at Boston College, both faculty and doctoral students,
the 1999 Professional Development Workshop Chairs, Stuart Albert, Deborah
Ancona, Karen Ayas, Bob Bartunek, Tom Bartunek, Allen Bluedorn, Kim Boal,
Hilda Carey, Jane Dutton, Connie Gersick, Brad Googins, Regina Greenwood,
Paul Hirsch, Anne Huff, Kim Kehoe, Barbara Kelsey, Kathy Kram, Meryl Louis,
Joanne Martin, Keith Murnighan, Raul Necochea, Hugh O’Neill, Wanda Orlikowski,
Jean Passavant, Sheila Puffer, Peter Senge, Ken Smith, Anne Tsui, Marcy
Tyre, and Jo Anne Yates.
All-Academy Sessions, or theme sessions, are designed to explore the theme of the Academy meeting in ways that extend beyond any particular division. Theme sessions this year will explore past times, present times and future times in relation to management and management scholarship. Here are brief descriptions of the All Academy sessions, organized to some extent by topic. When the program is available you will be able to look for more details about these sessions.
The dawn of a new millennium gives a great opportunity to reflect on management as it has developed over the course of the past 1000 years and to consider its (immediate) future...
Management in the Past Millennium: How We Arrived Here and Where
We Are Going?
Organized by Regina A. Greenwood, Kettering U.
This symposium presents a diversity of views of management along a continuum
from medieval times to the end of the past millennium. In this symposium
attention is focused on the impact of the Catholic Church in the Middle
Ages, the role of the guilds, the rise of industrialism, economic development
in Canada over the past 500 years, contributions of Japanese management
to modern management thought, and the emergence of a management theory
jungle that persists into the 21st century.
Business Models in the New Economy
Organized by Vinod Jain, Bowling Green State U.
Business models are a much-discussed topic in e-business circles though
there is little agreement among both researchers and practitioners as to
what the specific models are or how e-corporations create value in the
new economy. Time is of essence in the new economy. You have to be delivering
goods and services better, faster, cheaper, on a 24X7 basis, just to stay
in the game. The symposium will explore different e-business models and
their taxonomies from a strategic perspective. It will draw upon actual
e-corporate practice from around the world and attempt to provide a framework
for future discussions about e-business models.
How do we experience time-- at Academy meetings, at home and at work, in our larger societies? How do our experiences of time affect our organizing?...
The Days of Academy Lives: Investigations of Time Use at Academy
Meetings
Organized by Allen C. Bluedorn, University of Missouri-Columbia
This session will present the first time-budget research ever conducted
on academic meetings. Using a time-diary methodology, people who
attended the 1999 Academy of Management meeting, the 2000 National Conference
on Undergraduate Research, and the 2000 Midwest Academy of Management meeting
recorded how they used their time over 24-hour intervals during those meetings.
The time-use patterns that emerged at these three meetings will be presented,
and the possibilities for using this methodology and these data for managing
future meetings will be discussed. Forms and instructions will be
made available for attendees who wish to compare their time-use behaviors
at the 2000 Academy meeting with the patterns presented in this session.
Organizing Time: Organizational Practices and Work/Family Relations
Organized by Monique Valcour, Cornell U.
Balancing time commitments to work and family is one of the most pressing and significant concerns of working families, who now make up the bulk of the workforce. The challenges faced by employees who struggle to integrate work and family are well documented in both the scholarly and practitioner literature, as are those faced by organizations seeking to recruit, retain, and encourage high performance from their employees who struggle with balancing work and family. Yet it is widely agreed that the institutions of work and family continue to come into frequent conflict in contemporary society. The papers in this symposium constitute empirical and theoretical examinations of issues relevant to the development of organizational policies and practices to lessen the conflict between work and family. Both individual and organizational perspectives are considered.
Timescapes in Management: Exposing Contradictions, Exploring New
Possibilities
Organized by Ronald E. Purser, San Francisco State U.
The industrial timescape—informed by Newtonian/clock-time--is a temporal regime which is often out of synch with the timescapes of living systems. This symposium exposes how the management of public policy, strategy, organizational culture and change is fraught with contradictions that marginalize other legitimate temporalities. The “timescape perspective” is explored as a means for viewing time as constitutive of human and organizational experience. Presenters offer an alternative understanding of “a new time” in relation to people and organizations, which differs from the Newtonian rational core.
Eastern and Western Perspectives on Patterning of Time
Organized by Rabi S. Bhagat, U. of Memphis
Eastern and western perspectives in the patterning of time are presented and contrasted with the help of several exciting presentations from scholars who are intimately familiar with this topic in several different countries. A geography of time and its socio-cultural origins are explored. We also encourage researchers and practitioners to adopt a non-ethnocentric view of the significance of this highly important topic in research and practice as we enter the new millennium.
Work Motivation in the Here and Now: Flow, Sense of Progress, and
Centeredness
Organized by Kenneth W. Thomas, Naval Postgraduate School
Intrinsic motivation becomes more important as organizations become
less bureaucratic and require more self-management from workers.
Studying intrinsic motivation requires a shift in temporal perspective.
Much thinking has been expectancy based--with behavior driven by anticipated
future rewards. In contrast, intrinsic rewards involve workers’ experiences
in the moment. Presenters offer different descriptions of intrinsic
rewards, emphasizing how these "here and now" rewards shape the experience
of time itself. Barbara Schneider describes research with Mihalyi
Csikszentmihalyi on flow, also called "optimal experience." Flow
occurs when challenge and ability are high, with people so engaged that
time flies. Kenneth Thomas describes four intrinsic rewards derived
from the self-management process: meaningfulness, progress, choice and
competence. He emphasizes the sense of progress as a way of bringing
future purposes into the present. Progress means that time on a task
is paying off--that it is "time well spent." Erik Jansen interprets
Buddhist teachings, where the desired state is a centered state of "relaxed
alertness" that is intrinsically rewarding and healing--in contrast to
a "monkey mind" state that is confused and scattered. When centered,
people feel there is time enough. Robert Quinn will offer personal
and professional implications.
What would it mean to have time be integral to our research and our theorizing?...
Organization Studies: It's Time for Reflection
Organized by Elena Antonacopoulou, U. of Manchester
If you haven't made time yet to take stock of the developments in Organization Studies last century, then make sure you make time for this session this century. An international panel takes up the challenge to provoke and debate conceptions of time and their impact on organizational analysis, reflect on the development of organization theory and engage in real-time reflexivity. Need we say more !!! This is a session not to be missed!
Narrative Research in Time
Organized by John T. Luhman, New Mexico State U.
Narrative research has long considered the relationship between time and the recording of organization life. People tell stories in and of organizations that combine two essential qualities: time and plot. The plot of a story organizes goals, means and ends, initiatives and actions, intended and unintended consequences, causes and chance, all within a temporal unity. Most stories are about giving the human experience a temporal character. This symposium of narrative researchers will present some of the many ways organizational members combine time and plot to create the storytelling organization. Our goal is to present narrative research in practice as panel members explore stories of organizational life.
Minutes, Moments, and Madness: Exploring Temporal Patterns of Change
Organized by Deborah Ancona, MIT
Although there is a proliferation of work on time, this symposium will focus on the role of time and timing in organizational change. More specifically, we will examine three views of temporal patterns of change: alignment, modeling, and enactment. Alignment suggests that change in an entity (individual, team, organization, environment) is not isolated, but aligned with rates, cycles, rhythms, and patterns of change at other levels of analysis. Modeling pushes us to think about the key temporal parameters that propel and inhibit change, their lead and lag times, and key feedback loops. Enactment suggests a pattern of change based on practice or the interaction of action and existing temporal structures. Following short presentations on each view, we plan to engage the audience in conversations about how the three viewpoints might be combined to suggest new avenues for research and new managerial practices.
Time and Nike
Organized by Nancy Landrum, New Mexico State U.
Our topic "Time and Nike" focuses on how Nike Corporation rearticulates and otherwise renarrates labor and ecological practices in novel and seemingly progressive ways, applying what we view as retrospective reconstructions of its past practices and opportune promises of exemplary future practices. Nike reinvents and renarrates its public image just in time. There is a need to research this process, because to most of the consumer public and to most students of organization, the issues are just too undecidable to draw any sound conclusions. Our symposium explores theories of time and narrative that hopefully gives some theoretical and empirical insight into Nike's practices.
The Role of Time in Organizational Life
Organized by Claudia Bird Schoonhoven, U. of California, Irvine, and
Organization Science Editor-in-Chief
This symposium previews Organization Science's call for papers on "Time and Inter-temporal Dynamics in Organizations. In research “time” is often controlled by dummy variables representing a specific year when an event transpired, yet scholars seldom theorize about time-based changes directly. To help remedy this situation, our symposium features four papers. First, James G. March and Jerker Denrell, shows that repeated successes achieved by organizations through adaptation in the near term create a bias against time-distant alternatives not sufficiently anticipated from early outcomes. Henrich Greve uses data from 2315 radio stations to test the question: will organizations that value past aspirations obtain superior strategic positions compared to organizations that value current performance.Next, Heather Haveman argues that organizational evolution over time reflects both adaptation and selection. The integrative theory is tested with data on the thrift industry in California and the magazine publishing industry. Last, Allen Bluedorn will discuss communicating across “deep time.” The physicist Gregory Benford developed a warning system for nuclear waste interpretable for 10,000 years. Bluedorn builds on Benford to suggest ways deep-time thinking can be used to inform organizational science. We expect that these four papers will help encourage first rate and novel research on “The Role of Time in Organizational Life.”
Time in a Multilevel Organizational Context
Organized by Paul Goodman, Carnegie Mellon U.
This symposium will examine the role of time in multilevel organizational
research. Over the past decade, there has been increasing work on better
understanding organizational theory, measurement, and analysis in a multilevel
context. Similarly, there have been innovative attempts to understand the
role of time in organizational life. The intersection between time and
levels is a relatively unexplored area which should yield new insights
into how temporal processes relate to organizing. Some of the distinguishing
features of this symposium include: it brings together researchers who
have been working on the intersections among individual, group, organizational,
and environmental levels; it involves researchers who have been exploring
the role of time at these intersections both theoretically and empirically;
it explores some critical issues such as (1) the role of entrainment in
multilevel processes, (2) time lags among outcomes at different levels,
(3) the role and form of feedback cycles in creating organizational changes,
(4) the impact of technological cycles upon the time frames of organizational
processes, and (5) the role of organizational architecture and senior management
in coping with different organizational time frames; its format will maximize
the interactions between the panel and audience. This exploration at the
intersection between time and multilevel phenomena should stimulate new
ideas and research opportunities.
Are academics’ and practitioners’ times the same? Does it matter? Can they inform each other?...
Can Partners Dance to the Beats of Different Drummers? Time and Timing
in Academic-Practitioner Collaborations.
Organized by Drew L. Harris, Farleigh Dickinson U.
The push for greater relevancy in academic research and the press for faster knowledge generation and utilization in the business environment increasingly create uneasy partners in a dance of collaboration. This session uses the metaphor of dance to search for understanding and useful models in addressing the roles and issues of time and timing in academic-practice collaborations. We begin by asking participants to explore the dance metophor as movement coordinated, given structure and life by rhythm - a pulse that repeats with regularity. Yet, the beauty of dance comes from the music-dance interplay as dancers interpret rhythm. Through four cases, our panelists will explore questions of timing, coordination, and an intimacy: What minimal, common interpretation of time is needed? Are there mechanisms, structures or roles that facilitate blending rhythms? What happens when the music changes? What happens when new partners cut in? Do deeper levels of intimacy call for call for greater shared rhythm? Is the search for a common beat the essential key to the dance of collaboration? After reviewing the cases we will invite participants to join us in exploring their answers to the these questions and the usefulness of the dance metaphor in understanding academic-practice collaborations.
Past --> Future, Research --> Practice, Science --> Metaphor:
Does Research Add Value to Management Practice? The Complexity Perspective
Organized by Michael Lissack, Emergence
This session will explore, via a panel discussion, the question of “what can management research contribute to practice?". The management/research split can perhaps be meaningfully understood when one factors in the effects of time, of history, of the perceived need for prediction, and of uncertainty. Complexity science offers another view. Perhaps the problem is not with the managerial objects or theories but with the temporal nature of the models themselves. The same data need not be viewed as the tracing of a dynamic, but rather as the scatter readings of an attractor in state-space. Attractor models do not predict what happens next, but instead outline the rough boundaries of a space of action. Models of time become instead models of space. The task of managerial research becomes that of helping to identity relevant attractors (their boundaries and conditions) and to probe the dynamics of moving from one attractor to another. Questions of prediction no longer take center stage, but instead are replaced by questions of identity, values, boundaries, environments, pressures, and spaces for action. The panelists have collectively prepared a web-based dialogue (available at http://emergence.org/AOM2000) on which the discussion will be based. Copies of a summary will be available at the session itself.
A Time for Experimentation and Inquiry into Ourselves? A Collaborative
Academic-Practitioner Action Science Experiment in the U.S. Department
of Veteran Affairs to Reduce Workplace Stress and Aggression
Organized by Joel Harmon, Fairleigh Dickinson U.
This symposium explores the benefits and challenges of collaborative academic-practitioner action inquiry, characterized by co-management and reflexivity. In coming times, researchers may most add value by applying their expertise in inquiry and discovery during intimate collaboration with practitioners to co-generate knowledge for action. Although likely to help businesses desperate to strengthen their learning capability and be enjoyed by researchers sensing greater applicability and appreciation of their work, this represents a radical shift in modus operandi requiring considerable institutional and personal transformation. In our session, we examine an ongoing collaboration between academics from various disciplines/institutions and executives from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, one of the world’s largest public agencies. This highly collaborative project has two explicit goals. First, drive organization learning and change and improve service delivery via action inquiry –iterating large-scale, longitudinal research on workplace stress and aggression with intervention. Second, reflect on and learn from the collaborative process.
KAIROS AND CHRONOS - Two Dimensional Time and Its Practical Consequences
for Effective Managerial Leadership.
Organized by Elliott Jaques
Time management, but a two dimensional theory of time is essential: Kairos, or time of intention ? the time it is found a task or program shall take; and chronos, the time of results, or how long a task or program actually took. Practical illustrations will be presented to show how the kairos dimension was used to develop an objective measure of level of work, an objective measure of level of capability of individuals in relation to level of work, and a comprehensive goal setting system.
Anemophiles or Chronists? Unique Interpretations of Time by Modern
Systems Thinkers
Organized by Linda Booth Sweeney, Harvard U.
Time plays central and sometimes surprising roles in systems thinking
practices and particularly in the field of system dynamics. The insights
derived from system dynamics offer ways of understanding time that have
rarely been addressed by other scholars but are critical in today's time-starved
business environment. This symposium convenes a provocative panel of systems
thinkers and system dynamicists, Peter Senge, Dennis Meadows, Angeli Sastry,
and, by video, Elise Boulding, who will share their distinctive interpretations
of the role of time in professional and academic environments. We will
hear the panelists' views of the role of timing and pacing in organizations
as well as their reflections on the implications of the ways in which we
represent time in our models of organizations. Educators all, the panelists
will also share their efforts to teach others to shift, extend, or regulate
their sense of time in order to see formerly obscured interconnections
and patterns of behavior. The insights shared by this panel will have important
implications for leadership, critical thinking, systems thinking, and system
dynamics-related education.
What should business education be like during the new century? Join In some lively debates on this topic!...
Time for Change? Strategic Options for Management Education in the
21st Century
Organized by Paul Friga, U. of North Carolina
This panel will address critical issues associated with the description and timing of potential changes in business school education. Three primary issues relating to time that we plan to address include: (i) the amount of time historically required for management programs such as MBAs; (ii) the amount of time (50 years) without significant changes in educational models; and (iii) the estimate of time before powerful market forces and new entrants change how management education is delivered. Representatives from academia, government, and private industry will shed light on what our esteemed business schools should consider in developing their 21st Century strategies.
Shaping Management and Executive Education for the New Millennium:
Time Based Issues and Challenges
Organized by Michael K. Badawy, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and
State U.
This session explores the issues relating to the impacts of time - in
a quantitative and qualitative sense- on the structure, process, content,
and direction of management and executive education provided by business
schools as it relates to management practice and effectiveness. Focus will
be on proposing some time-based action mechanisms for shaping management
and executive education in the twenty-first century. Presented by leading
authorities in this field, this session will take a cross-disciplinary
approach driven by the multiple research perspectives from a variety of
fields as represented by the rich and diverse professional backgrounds
of the session speakers.
We will have three very special Sunday Sessions...
2:10 - 3:30 Excellence in the Academy
Organized by David A. Whetten, Brigham Young U.
The winners of last year’s Academy awards for scholarship (Barry Staw),
educator (Richard Hodgetts), service (Richard Mowday) and the Terry Book
Award (Shona Brown and Kathleen Eisenhardt) will join Academy President
David Whetten in presenting in important panel dealing with excellence
in scholarship, teaching, and service in the Academy.
3:50 - 5:10 PM Dr. Hooley McLaughlin: Memory of the Future 
Hooley McLaughlin (Ph.D. University of Toronto) is Senior Advisor for
Science and Technology at the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto, Canada.
Dr. McLaughlin joined the Science Centre in 1987. He has developed
a number of scientific exhibitions ranging in subject from Sport, to Psychology,
to the Gulag Prisons of Siberia, to the elusive nature of Time. He
created the controversial A Question of Truth, an exhibition that examines
the role science has played in the history of bias and oppression.
He participates in frequent international meetings in North America, Europe,
Africa and Asia, discussing the connections between science and culture.
He is the author of The Ends of Our Exploring: Ethical and Scientific Journeys
to Remote Places (Malcolm Lester Books, Toronto, 1999). Named by
the Globe and Mail as one of the 100 best books for 1999, the book is a
critique of Western philosophy through the use of stories of Dr. McLaughlin’s
international travels.
The Timescape exhibition at the Ontario Science Centre, for which Dr.
McLaughlin is Project Leader and chief concept and content developer, is
a dramatic exhibition exploring the many scientific aspects of time in
a unique, theatrical setting. It won the year 2000 Attractions Canada
indoor exhibition award.
5:30 PM - 7:00 PM Executive Speaker. Mr. Hatim Tyabji, in Conversation with Professor André Delbecq: A CEO’s Perspective on Creating and Sustaining a Values-Based Organizational Culture
Consistent with our tradition of selecting a highly successful business
leader to receive our Distinguished Executive Award, this year we have
selected Hatim Tyabji, founding Chairman and CEO of Saraide.
Mr.
Tyabji is one of the new breed of “high tech CEO’s” having a significant
impact on the telecommunications industry. In 1998 he founded Saraide
to drive the convergence between the internet and wireless telecommunications.
In 1999 he negotiated the sale of 80% of Saraide to InfoSpace.com, creating
the largest global alliance in the wireless internet services market.
Customers using pagers, cell phones, PDAs, or television set-top boxes
can now access a wide range of wireless services, including address book
and calendar, email, messaging, stock quotes, travel information, local
business locator services, personal banking, price comparison shopping
and purchasing goods, etc. By combining InfoSpace.com’s leadership
in internet-based information services and Saraide’s leadership in sophisticated
wireless data services, the notion of the “web in your pocket” is rapidly
becoming a compelling solution for commerce, communication and collaboration.
Now a naturalized U.S. citizen, Mr. Tyabji was born in Bombay, India in 1945, and came to the U.S. in 1967. He holds a B.S. from the College of Engineering in Poona, India, an M.S. from the State University of New York at Buffalo, and an MBA in international business from Syracuse University.
Mr. Tyabji is a member of the Board of the Leavey School of Business
at Santa Clara University and friend there of a well-known member of the
Academy of Management, Andre Delbecq. Mr. Tyabji has participated in a
dialog at Santa Clara sponsored by the Institute for Spirituality of Organizational
Leadership (which Andre directs) among theologians, management scholars
and executives exploring the intersection of the religious discipline of
"discernment" and contemporary management studies of "strategic decision
making".
During the Distinguished Executive Speaker session Professor Delbecq
and Mr. Tyabji will begin a conversation on the subject of “Creating and
Sustaining a Values-Based Organizational Culture.”
In addition, we want to highlight some of the sessions that will take place during the Academy:
Two case sessions will address issues for which time is particularly relevant. As occurred last year, CD roms that accompany the case sessions will be made available to all the meeting participants.
"Images
of A New Time" and the Village Square
Submit Your Work for Publication
To All AMR Contributors:
Because of an error in the Calls for Papers appearing in the Academy
of Management Meetings Program, and on the web page of the Academy, there
has been some confusion about the deadline for submissions to the Academy
of Management Review Special Topics Forum titled "A New Time". The established
due date on the call which appeared both in AMR and on the AMR web site
was July 1, 2000. However, a due date of October 1 appeared in the Academy
Program and on the Academy web site. Given the confusion caused by this
discrepancy, the official deadline for this issue has been extended from
July 1 to September 1, 2000. We hope this change will make it possible
for all interested contributors to complete their submission in time. The
revised call now appears on the Academy and AMR web sites.
Links with Other “Timely” Initiatives
There are several other initiatives related to "time" during 1999-2000. Among them are:
