June 2001

JohnHassard is from theDepartment ofOrganizational Analysis,Manchester School ofManagement, UMIST,ManchesterM60 1QD,UK.

ßBlackwell Publishers Ltd 2001,108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX41JF, UK and 350 Main Street,Malden, MA 02148, USA

Commodification,construction andcompression: a review oftimemetaphors inorganizational analysis1

John Hassard

This paper offers a historical review of forms of temporal structuring and experience in theevolution of work organization. Initially, we review some key images of time and temporalityto emerge from philosophy and social theory. In particular, we discuss images of temporalstructuring reflected in the two key time metaphors, the line and the cycle. Secondly, weexamine some of the main images of time to emerge from the history of work organization.While initially the focus is upon those linear time images that stem from the progressivecommodification of the labour process, subsequently this analysis is qualified by time imagesthat reflect the social construction of organizational culture. An examination of thehomogeneous time-reckoning systems of Taylorism is complemented by examples ofheterogeneous time-reckoning from anthropological and ethnographic studies. Finally, wediscuss the postmodernist debate in the sociology of time. Much of the foregoing analysishaving been devoted to issues of clock-time, this section sees discussion of what has beenreferred to as ``instantaneous-time'', whereby organizational practices are based on time-framesthat liebeyondconscioushumanexperience.Thisconcept isassociatedwiththecomplexshifts from Fordism to the flexible accumulation of ` post-Fordism''. Central to this debate is thenotion of the time^space compression of physical processes and human experiences.

Metaphors of Time

A common starting point for those wishing toexplore metaphors of temporal structuring insociety in general and formal organizations in

particular is within the literature of socialphilosophy. In social philosophy, there is along and sophisticated tradition of temporalanalysis. The concept of time has, as Jaques(1982, xi) notes, been a central and continuous

International Journal of Management Reviews Volume 3 Issue 2 pp. 131–140 131

subject for philosophers for over two thousandyears. Debate is found at a number of abstractlevels, ranging from ontological concerns withtime and existence, to epistemologicalconcerns with time and understanding. It is atradition that has yielded a wealth of abstract,complex, yet unresolved questions (see Gale1968). Although a detailed analysis of suchquestions is beyond our scope, we can at leastnote the main issues that confront thephilosopher of time.

To achieve this, we turn to the excellentintroduction to temporal philosophy presentedby Heath (1956). Heath introduces thephilosophy of time by asking three questionscentral to discussions in the field. First, at thelevel of ontology, he asks whether we shouldregard time as an objective fact located ‘‘outthere’’ in the external world, or as a subjectiveessence which is constructed via a ‘‘network ofmeanings’’; that is, should we think of time asreal and concrete or essential and abstract?Secondly, he asks whether we should think oftime as homogeneous (time units areequivalent) or as heterogeneous/epochal (timeunits are experienced differentially); is timecontinuous and infinite, or atomistic anddivisible? And thirdly, he asks whether timecan be measured, and if so, whether we canhave more than one valid time; should time beregarded as a ‘‘unitary quantitative com-modity’’ or as a ‘‘manifold qualitativeexperience’’? In many ways, the manner bywhich we answer these questions will determinehow time is conceptualized in relation to theanalysis of work and organization. Heath’santinomies represent basic constructs forinterpreting the nature of time in formalinstitutions. Moreover, they provide a set oftools for dissecting sociological conceptsrelating to temporal issues of organization,and lay conceptual foundations for associatedresearch perspectives.

Sociologists have argued that metaphor isanother powerful tool for social analysis(Manning 1979; Pinder and Moore 1979;Tinker 1986). In particular, it has becomepopular to use metaphors, or other related

tropes, when illustrating the imagery ofsociological concepts (Lakoff and Johnson1980). Morgan (1986), for example, has shownthe power of metaphor for interpreting work-organizations as ‘‘systems’’, ‘‘machines’’,‘‘dramas’’, ‘‘organisms’’ and even ‘‘psychicprisons’’. For concepts of time, however,conceptual developments have been slower(see Hassard 1990; Jaques 1982). Thus far,relatively few robust metaphors have beenrefined to conceptualize what is, likeorganization, an abstract and elusive notion.Of those that have, the most popular have beenthose of the ‘‘cycle’’ and the ‘‘line’’.

For the metaphor of cycle, one of the best-known analyses has been that provided byEliade (1959). Eliade describes how the cyclewas the basic time metaphor of what he calls‘‘archaic man’’ (or ‘‘pre-Christian man’’). Hesuggests that for archaic man events unfoldedin an ever-recurring rhythm; his sense of timewas developed out of his struggle with theseasons; his time horizon was defined by the‘‘myth of the eternal return’’. In contrast,Eliade argues that when ‘‘Christian man’’abandoned this bounded world for a direct,linear progression to redemption andsalvation, then for the first time he foundhimself exposed to the dangers inherent in thehistorical process. Since then humankind hastried to master history and to bring it to aconclusion; as, for example, Marx and Hegelsought to do. In the ‘‘modern’’ world, we seekrefuge in various forms of faith in order torationalize a historical process that seems tohave neither beginning or end (Eliade 1959;see also Fabian 1983; Park 1980).

An argument similar to that of Eliade isprovided by de Grazia (1972) in his analysisof ‘‘linear-time’’. De Grazia suggests that,whereas primitive concepts of time aredominated by the metaphor of the cycle, formodern societies Christian beliefs give theimage of time as a straight line – as a testingpathway from sin on earth, throughredemption, to eternal salvation in heaven.He argues that, in the evolution of modernculture, the idea of irreversibility has replaced

Commodification,construction andcompression: areview of timemetaphors inorganizationalanalysis

ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001

132

that of eternal return. The distinguishingfeature of ultimate progression has led theway to a new linear concept of time and, withit, a sense of firm beginning. For example, inbook two of his Confessions, Augustine‘broke’ the circle of Roman time. In contrastto Herodotus and his notion of the cycle ofhuman events, Augustine dispelled ‘falsecircles’ and instead purported the straight lineof human history. Although Anno Dominichronology became widespread only duringthe eighteenth century, history began to bedated from the birth of Jesus Christ (de Grazia1972).

Commodification (and Capital)

The linear metaphor is important because ofits link with a further concept, time as acommodity of the industrial process. This linkis central to the development of what we shallterm the linear-quantitative tradition oftemporal imagery in industrial sociology. Interms of the current modernism–post-modernism debate, this tradition reflects aclassic modernist grand narrative andtrajectory (Macnaughten and Urry 1998).

During the rise of industrial capitalism, thissense of unilinearity was to find time equatedwith value (Nyland 1990; Thompson 1967;Thrift 1990). Technological and manu-facturing innovations saw the concept becomeclosely aligned with that of industrialprogress. Time, like the individual, became acommodity of the production process, for inthe crucial equation linking acceleration andaccumulation, a human value could be placedupon time. Surplus value could be accruedthrough extracting more time from labourersthan was required to produce goods to thevalue of their wages (Marx 1976). Theemphasis was upon formality and scarcity.The images came from Newton and Descartes:time was real, uniform and all-embracing; itwas a mathematical phenomenon; it could beplotted as an abscissa.

In this Newtonian/Cartesian tradition,modern industrial cultures were seen to adopt

predominantly linear time perspectives. Here,the past is unrepeatable, the present istransient, and the future is infinite andexploitable. Time is homogeneous: it isobjective, measurable and infinitely divisible;it is related to change in the sense of motionand development; it is quantitative. Whereasin modern theology linear time has as itsconclusion the promise of eternity, in themundane, secular activities of industrialismtemporal units are seen as finite. Time is aresource that has the potential to be consumedby a plethora of activities; its scarcity is seenas intensified when the number of potentialclaimants is increased. In advanced societies,time scarcity makes events become moreconcentrated and segregated – special ‘times’are given over for various forms of activities.Time is experienced not only as a sequencebut also as a boundary condition. As thefunctionalist sociologist Wilbert Moore stated,time becomes: ‘‘a way of locating humanbehaviour, a mode of fixing the action that isparticularly appropriate to circumstances’’(1963, 7).

By uniting the ideas of linearity and value,we begin to see time as a limited good – itsscarcity enhances its worth. Lakoff andJohnson (1980) crystallize this idea by citingthree further metaphors to illustrate thedominant conception of linear time: time ismoney; time is a limited resource; time is avaluable commodity. Graham (1981), like-wise, suggests that time and money areincreasingly exchangeable commodities: timeis one means by which money can beappropriated, in the same way as money canbe used to buy time; money increases in valueover time, while time can be invested now toyield money later.

This quantitative, commodified image isthus primarily a by-product of industrialism.Mumford (1934) for instance has emphasizedhow ‘‘the clock, not the steam engine [was]the key machine of the industrial age’’ (p. 14).He argues that rapid developments insynchronization were responsible fororganizations of the industrial revolution

June 2001

ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001

133

being able to display such high levels offunctional specialization. Large production-based firms required considerable seg-mentation of both parts (roles and positions)and activities in time and space. Suchspecializations set requirements for extensivetime/space co-ordination at both intra- andinter-organizational levels. As high levels ofco-ordination needed high levels of planning,so sophisticated temporal schedules werenecessary to provide a satisfactory degree ofpredictability. The basis of fine predictionbecame that of sophisticated measurement,with efficient organization becomingsynonymous with detai led temporalassessments of productivity. As the machinebecame the focal point of work, so timeschedules became the central feature ofplanning. During industrialism, the clock wasthe instrument of co-ordination and control.The time period replaced the task as the focalunit of production (Mumford 1934).

In another landmark study, Thompson(1967) argues that industrialism sees a crucialchange in the employment relation, as it isnow time rather than skill or effort thatbecomes of paramount concern. In large-scalemanufacturing, the worker becomes subject toextremely elaborate and detailed forms oftime-discipline (Thompson 1967). Whereasprior to industrialism ‘‘nearly all craftsmenwere self employed, working in their ownhomes with their tools, to their own hours’’(Wright 1968, p. 16), with the factory systemcame temporal rigidification. Before theindustrial revolution, the prime characteristicof work was its irregularity. Periods of intenseworking were followed by periods of relativeinactivity. There was the tradition of ‘‘StMonday’’, with Mondays often being taken asa casual day like Saturday and Sunday; mostof the work was done in the middle of theweek (Thompson 1967). Similarly, the lengthof the working day was irregular anddetermined largely by the time of the year.Thompson’s quote from Hardy complementshis analysis well: ‘‘Tess . . . started her way upthe dark and crooked lane or street not made

for hasty progress; a street laid out beforeinches of land had value, and when one-handed clocks sufficiently subdivided theday’’ (1967, 56).

The linear-quantitative tradition thusemphasizes how, in contrast to the task-oriented experience of most historical anddeveloping economies, under industrialcapitalism not only have the great majorityof workers become subject to rigidlydetermined time schedules, but they have alsobecome remunerated in terms of temporalunits; that is, paid by the hour, day, week,month or year. The omnipresence of thefactory clock brought with it the idea thatone is exchanging time rather than skill:selling labour-time rather than labour. Underindustrial capitalism, workers are forced tosell their time by the hour (Gioscia 1972). Insum, this modernist trajectory sees timebecome a commodity to be earned, saved orspent.

Out of this form of analysis, industrialsociology came to view modern conceptionsof time as hegemonic structures whoseessences are precision, control and discipline.In industrial societies, the clock becomes thedominant machine of productive organization;it provides the signal for labour to commenceor halt activity. Workers must consult thetime-clock before they begin working.Although life in modern societies is structuredaround times allocated for many differentactivities, it is always production that takespreference: ‘‘Man is synchronised to work,rather than technology being synchronised toman’’ (de Grazia 1972, 439). Time is givenfirst to production – other times must be fittedaround the margins of the production process.Ideal productive organizations are those thathave temporal assets which are highly precisein structuring and distribution. As techno-logical determinism dominates modernistperceptions of time, so correct arithmeticalequations are seen as the solutions to timeproblems – there are finite limits and optimalsolutions to temporal structuring. The basicrule is that a modern productive society is

Commodification,construction andcompression: areview of timemetaphors inorganizationalanalysis

ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001

134

effective only if its members follow a highlypatterned series of temporal conventions; eachsociety’s productive day must be launchedprecisely on time. In this process, clock-timeholds advantages for capital as it is bothvisible and standardized. It has two strengthsin particular: it provides a common organizingframework to synchronize activities, and itcommodifies labour as a factor of production(Clark 1982; Hassard 1990).

It is indeed from this scenario that, forindustrial sociology, Frederick W. Taylor wasto emerge as the heir to Adam Smith’s pinfactory, and thus to become the high priest ofrational time-use. It is in the manuals ofindustrial engineers following Taylor thatwere found the logical conclusions to theideas of Smith, Ricardo and Babbage.Scientific Management, and the time andmotion techniques that were its legacy,established by direct administrative authoritywhat the machine accomplished indirectly,namely fine control of human actions. InTaylorism, we reach the highpoint in sepa-rating labour from the varied rhythmsexperienced in craft or agricultural work:clock rhythms replace fluctuating rhythms;machine-pacing replaces self-pacing; labourserves technology.

Thus, for modern industrial societies, thelinear conception of time became ‘com-modified’ due to a major change in economicdevelopment; that is, when time wasdiscovered as a factor in production. Timewas a value that could be translated intoeconomic terms: ‘‘it became the medium inwhich human activities, especially economicactivities, could be stepped up to a previouslyunimagined rate of growth’’ (Nowotny 1976,330). Time was a major symbol for theproduction of economic wealth. No longerwas it merely sacred, given and reproduciblethrough cultural notions of the ‘‘eternalreturn’’, but represented instead an economicobject whose production is symbolized. Underindustrial capitalism, timekeepers were thenew regulators and controllers of work; theyquantified and transformed activity into

monetary value (Nowotny 1976). When timebecame deemed a valuable commodity, thenits users were obliged to display goodstewardship; time was scarce and must beused rationally (see also Julkunnen 1977;Thrift 1990).

This linear-quantitative thesis is powerful,therefore, because it describes how, underindustrial capitalism, time becomes an objectfor consumption. Time is reified and givencommodity status so that relative surplusvalue can be extracted from the labourprocess. The emphasis is upon time as aboundary condition of the employmentrelation. Time is an objective parameter ratherthan an experiential state (Fabian 1983).

Construction (and Collectivity)

However, the standard linear-quantitativethesis is one needing qualification. Whentaken up by industrial sociologists, especiallythose concerned with labour process analysis(see Thompson and McHugh 1998), it is oftenused to overstate the quantitative rationality ofproduction practices and understate thequalitative construction of temporal meanings.There is a tendency, for example, to gloss overthe fact that the world of work is composednot simply of ‘paced’ work systems, butincludes a wealth of work processes basedon self-determined production.

Although temporal flexibility has beenassociated with new structural forms ofemployment (Pollert 1988; Thompson andMcHugh 1998), in the more subtle sense ofsocial construction, it has long remainedwidespread in boundary-spanning organiza-tional functions. Moreover, while professionalroles retain flexible, event-based task trajec-tories, many non-professional occupationsalso operate within irregular, if not totallyself-determined, temporal patterns. Exampleshere include the emergency services, policeand maintenance crews. Further, event-basedtemporal trajectories have long been common-place within service economies, while newforms of employment systems have violated

June 2001

ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001

135

the tradition of selling labour-time in thehomogeneous sense of eight hours a day/fivedays a week/fifty weeks a year. An extremeexample of this increasing heterogeneity inwork-time arrangements is the system of ‘no-hours’ contracts in retailing, where employeescan (in theory) decline to accept the workschedules offered by management.

We can begin to question therefore whetherthe linear-quantitative thesis should be appliedso readily as the basis for explaining thenature of time at work. Whereas many writersfollowing the structuralist labour processformulae of Braverman (1974) suggest that aprogressive temporal commodification accom-panies increased de-skilling, other writersargue that employers’ time-structuring prac-tices are more complex and less deterministicthan mainstream labour process theory implies(see Clark 1982; Hassard 1990; Starkey 1988).

Clark (1982), for instance, suggests that‘‘the claim that commodified time has to betransposed into a highly fractionated divisionof labour through Taylorian recipes is naı¨ve’’(1982, 18). Drawing upon socio-technicaltheory, he offers examples of ‘‘rational’’ taskdesigns that are not anticipated by the theoryof the ‘‘porous day’’ (Clarket al. 1984). Forexample, in socio-technical systems, a majorkey to improving productivity – and also thequality of working life – is to permit temporalautonomy. Here, time structuring is takenaway from the ‘planners’ and handed over tothe ‘executors’, that is, to the (quasi-autonomous) work group or work cell.

Indeed many of the scenarios that emergefrom an unrestrained linear-quantitative thesisrequire scrutiny. The standard image of post-Taylorist work practices is of homogeneousactivities being measured in micro-seconds inorder to form some optimal, aggregate,standardized production output. Althoughapparently a now ‘‘neglected’’ (Rowlinsonand McArdle 1993) form of organizationalanalysis, production line ethnographies (e.g.Cavendish 1982; Kamata 1982; Roy 1990)have documented how this image ignores thepower of workgroups, on even the most

externally determined task processes, toconstruct their own time-reckoning systems.While in comparison with other forms oforganization the collective temporal inven-tories of production are exact, they remain ofbounded rationality when we considercontingencies such as technical failure, marketdemand and the psychological contract.

The identification of qualitative, collectiveexperience has historically been a theme ofboth the French and American traditions in thesociology of time (see Hassard 1990). In theFrench tradition, the writings of Durkheim(1976), Hubert (1905), Hubert and Mauss(1909) and Mauss (1966) all emphasize the‘rhythmical’ nature of social life throughdeveloping a concept of ‘qualitative’ time;that is, an appreciation of time far removedfrom writers who present it as simplymeasurable duration. Hubert (1905), forexample, defined time as a symbolic structurerepresenting the organization of societythrough its temporal rhythms, this being atheme also developed by Durkheim, whoanalysed the social nature of time (Isambert1979). Durkheim focused on time as acollective phenomenon; as a product ofcollective consciousness (see Pronovost1986). For Durkheim, all members of asociety share a common temporal conscious-ness; time is a social category of thought, aproduct of society. In Durkheim, we find amacro-level exposition of the concept ofsocial rhythm. Collective time is the sum oftemporal procedures which interlock to formthe cultural rhythm of a given society.Durkheim argues that: ‘‘The rhythm ofcollective life dominates and encompassesthe varied rhythms of all the elementary livesfrom which it results; consequently, the timethat is expressed dominates and encompassesall particular durations’’ (1976, 69). ForDurkheim, time is derived from social lifeand becomes the subject of collectiverepresentations. It is fragmented into aplethora of temporal activities that arereconstituted into an overall cultural rhythmthat gives it meaning (Pronovost 1986).

Commodification,construction andcompression: areview of timemetaphors inorganizationalanalysis

ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001

136

In the American tradition, Sorokin andMerton (1937) also highlight this qualitativenature of social time. In so doing, however,they draw not only on Durkheim, but moresignificantly on the works of early culturalanthropologists such as Best (1922),Codrington (1891), Hodson (1908), Kroeber(1923) and Nilsonn (1920). This synthesisallows Sorokin and Merton to identifyqualitative themes at both micro and macrolevels. While, at the micro level, theyemphasize the discontinuity, relativity andspecificity of time (‘‘social time is qualita-tively differentiated’’, 1937, 615), they alsosuggest, like Durkheim, that: ‘‘units of timeare often fixed by the rhythm of collectivelife’’ (1937, 615). Indeed, they take thisposition a step further. Whereas in his studiesof the Nuer, Evans-Pritchard (1940) illustratedhow certain activities give significance tosocial time, Sorokin and Merton adopt aposition more characteristic of the sociologyof knowledge. They argue that meaning comesto associate an event with its temporal setting,and that the recognition of specific periods isdependent on the degree of significanceattributed to them. Drawing on Gurdon’s(1914) anthropology, they argue that ‘‘systemsof time reckoning reflect the social activitiesof the group’’ (Sorokin and Merton 1937,620). They show that the concept ofqualitative time is important not only forprimitive societies, but also for modernindustrial states. They suggest that,

Social time is qualitative and not purelyquantitative . . . These qualities derive from thebeliefs and customs common to the group . . . Theyserve to reveal the rhythms, pulsations, and beatsof the societies in which they are found. (1937,623)

Perhaps the most ambitious attempt to outlinethe qualitative nature of social-time has beenmade by Gurvitch (1964). In a sophisticated, ifat times rather opaque, thesis, Gurvitch offersa typology of eight ‘‘times’’ to illustrate thetemporal complexity of modern, class-bound

society (i.e. enduring, deceptive, erratic,cyclical, retarded, alternating, pushingforward, explosive). He illustrates howcultures are characterized by a melange ofconflicting times, and how social groups areconstantly competing over a choice of‘‘appropriate’’ times. Like earlier writers,Gurvitch distinguishes between the micro-social times characteristic of groups andcommunities, and the macro-social timescharacteristic of, for example, systems andinstitutions. He makes constant reference to aplurality of social times, and notes how indifferent social classes we find differences oftime scales and levels. He suggests thatthrough analysing time at the societal levelwe can reveal a double timescale operating –with on the one hand the ‘‘hierarchicallyordered and unified’’ time of social structure,and on the other the ‘‘more flexible time of thesociety itself’’ (1964, 391).

This literature suggests, then, that modernsocieties – as well as primitive ones – holdpluralities of qualitative time-reckoningsystems, and that these are based on com-binations of duration, sequence and meaning.Unlike with homogeneous time-reckoning,there is no uniformity of pace and noquantitative divisibility or cumulation of units.The emphasis is on collective culturalexperience and sense-making: on creatingtemporal meanings rather than responding totemporal structures. The goal is to explain thecyclical and qualitative nature of social time.

Compression (and Complexity)

Finally, in social and organizational theorymuch attention in the past decade has focusedon the notion of the postmodern ‘‘turn’’. Thepostmodern turn is predicated on the view thatmany of the symbolic boundaries between, forexample, art, high culture and the academy, onthe one hand, and everyday life and popularculture, on the other, are dissolving. Thepostmodern is said to bring with it more openand fluid social identities, as compared withthe traditionally fixed ones of the ‘‘modern’’

June 2001

ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001

137

period, and in particular those related tofamily, work and career.

For the analysis of the relationship betweentime and organization, it is argued, underpostmodernism, that clock-time is partly beingreplaced with what Macnaghten and Urry(1998) describe as ‘‘instantaneous-time’’. Thegeneral argument is that decision-makers whorespond to an increasing complex and riskyworld are required to do so ‘‘instantaneously’’.Whereas telephones and fax machines reducedhuman response times from months, weeks anddays to that of seconds, advanced computertechnologies contracts them into nanoseconds,to even times of a billionth of a second.Contemporary social and organizationalpractices are based on time-frames that liebeyond conscious human experience. Time isorganized at speeds beyond the feasible realmof human consciousness. Instantaneous time isbased on a shift from the ‘‘atom to the bit’’.Decisions are made by computer technology innanosecond time. As Macnaghten and Urry(1998, 149) argue, ‘‘the new computer-timerepresents the final abstraction of time and itssequestration from social experience and therhythms of the social world’’. The followinglist (abridged from Macnaghten and Urry,1998, 150) sets out some of the indicators of acollapse of ‘‘waiting culture’’ and thepermeation of ‘‘instantaneous time’’:

• organizational changes which break downdistinctions of night and day, working-week and weekend, home and work,leisure and work;

• the increased disposability of products,places and images in a ‘‘throw-awaysociety’’;

• a growing volatility and ephemerality infashions, ideas and images;

• a heightened ‘‘temporariness’’ of jobs,careers, values and personal relationships;

• the proliferation of flexible forms oftechnology and huge amounts of waste;

• the growth of 24-hour trading;• the increased rates of divorce and other

forms of household dissolution;

• an increasing sense that the ‘‘pace of life’’has got too fast.

Offering a theoretical underpin for this notionof instantaneous-time are works that docu-ment changes in the connections of time,space and technology. Perhaps best knownamong this literature is Harvey’s (1989) workon ‘‘time–space compression’’. Harvey hasargued that the advance of capitalism entailsdifferent ‘‘spatial fixes’’ within differenthistorical periods. Within each capitalistepoch, space is organized so as to enable thecontinued growth of production and themaximization of profit. Indeed, it is throughthe reorganization of spatio-temporal arrange-ments that capitalism overcomes its periods ofcrisis and lays the foundations for the nextperiod of capital accumulation.

Harvey, in particular, examines how thenotion of the ‘‘annihilation of space by time’’can be used to explain the shift from Fordismto post-Fordism, the latter involving new waysin which time and space are represented.Crucial here is the notion of time–spacecompression of physical and human processesand experiences. Harvey argues that in thepast couple of decades instantaneous mobilityhas been carried to extremes, so that time andspace appear literallycompressed. He suggestthat as we are forced to alter how we representthe world to ourselves, then

Space appears to shrink to a ‘global village’ oftelecommunications and a ‘spaceship earth’ ofeconomic and ecological interdependencies . . . andas time horizons shorten to the point where thepresent is all there is . . . so we have to learn how tocope with an overwhelming sense ofcompressionof our spatial and temporal worlds. (1989, 240)

Various transformations characterize thiscompression. Products, places and people goin and out of fashion with ever increasingrapidity. At the same time, products becomeinstantaneously available everywhere (at leastin the ‘West’). Thus the time-horizons fordecision-making shrink dramatically, being inminutes on the major international financial

Commodification,construction andcompression: areview of timemetaphors inorganizationalanalysis

ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001

138

markets. Contracts are increasingly ‘temporary’owing to a general culture of short-termism andthe decline of the ‘waiting culture’.

Conclusion

This paper has reviewed some of the maintime metaphors associated with the study ofindustrialism, work and organizations.Initially drawing upon philosophy and socialtheory, the historical roots of the keymetaphors of line and cycle were examinedin order to lay the ground for a more detailedunderstanding of time-use and experience inorganizations ‘under capitalism’. Initially, thisanalysis witnessed a preoccupation inindustrial sociology with the concept oftemporal commodificationand in particularwith examination of the homogeneous time-reckoning systems of Taylorism as the basisfor industrial organization and control. It wasargued subsequently that necessary as this‘linear-quantitative’ tradition is for explainingthe evolution of industrial and organizationalbehaviour, it alone does not provide thecomplete story of temporal structuring andexperience. The paper attempted to comple-ment a review of the commodificationliterature with an appreciation of work thatdocuments the ‘real world’ of time use andexperience through emphasizing the qualita-tive experience of temporal socialconstruc-tion. Research in this tradition describes howour ‘everyday’ understanding of work is basedfrequently upon the construction of recurrent‘event times’. Finally, it was argued thatduring the past decade much attention in thesocial study of time has been concerned withissues of postmodernism and complexity. Inexamining metaphors of time structuring andexperience from this perspective, we found thedominant image was of increasing time–spacecompressionof physical and human processes.

Note

1 An earlier version of this paper was presented to

the OMT Division symposium ‘It’s About Time:

Bringing Time Back In’, Academy of Manage-ment, Toronto, 2000, organizers: Stewart Cleggand Thekla Rura-Polley.

References

Best, E. (1922). The Maori division of time.DominionMuseum Monograph, 4.

Braverman, H. (1974).Labor and Monopoly Capital:The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century.New York, London: Monthly Review Press.

Cavendish, R. (1982).Women on the Line. London:Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Clark, P.A. (1982). A review of the theories of timeand structure for organisational sociology. WorkingPaper No. 248, Management Centre, University ofAston.

Clark, P.A., Hantrais, L., Hassard, J.S., Linhart, D.and Starkey, K.P. (1984). The porous andtempschoisi. Paper presented at the Third Annual‘Organization and Control of the Labour Process’Conference, Aston University, UK.

Codrington, R.H. (1891).The Melanesians. Oxford.Durkheim, E. (1976).The Elementary Forms of the

Religious Life, 2nd edition. London: George Allen& Unwin.

Eliade, M. (1959).Cosmos and History: The Myth ofthe Eternal Return. New York: Harper & Row.

Evans-Pritchard, E.E. (1940).The Nuer. Oxford:Oxford University Press.

Fabian, J. (1983).Time and the Other: HowAnthropology Makes its Object. New York:Columbia University Press.

Gale, R. (ed.) (1968).The Philosophy of Time: ACollection of Essays.Sussex: Harvester.

Gioscia, V. (1972). On social time. In Yaker, H.Osmond, H. and Cheek, F. (eds),The Future ofTime. New York: Anchor Books.

Graham, R.J. (1981). The perception of time inconsumer research.Journal of Consumer Research,7, 335–42.

Grazia, S. de (1972). Time and work. In Yaker, H.,Osmond, H. and Cheek, F. (eds),The Future ofTime. New York: Anchor Books.

Gurdon, P.T.R. (1914).The Khasis. London.Gurvitch, G. (1964).The Spectrum of Social Time.

Dordrecht: D. Reidel.Harvey, D (1989).The Condition of Postmodernity.

Oxford: Blackwell.Hassard, J. (1990). Introduction. In Hassard, J. (ed.),

The Sociology of Time. London: MacmillanHeath, L.R. (1956).The Concept of Time. Chicago:

June 2001

ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001

139

University of Chicago Press.Hodson, T.C. (1908).The Meitheis. London.Hubert, H. (1905). Etude sommaire de la

representation du temps dans la religion et lamagie. Annuaire de l’Ecole Pratique des HautesEtudes, 1–39.

Hubert, H. and Mauss, M. (1909).Melangesd’Histoire des Religions. Paris: Alcan.

Isambert, F-A. (1979). Henri Hubert et la sociologiedu temps.Revue Franc¸aise de Sociologie, 20, 183–204.

Jaques, E. (1982).The Form of Time. London:Heinemann.

Julkunnen, R.A. (1977). A contribution to thecategories of social time and the economies oftime. Acta Sociologica, 20: 5–24.

Kamata, S. (1982).Life in the Passing Lane: AnInsider’s Account of Life in a Japanese AutoFactory. London: Counterpoint

Kroeber, A.L. (1923).Anthropology. New York.Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. (1980).Metaphors We

Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Macnaghten, P. and Urry, J. (1998).Contested

Natures. London: Sage.Manning, P. (1979). Metaphors of the field.

Administrative Science Quarterly, 24: 660–671.Marx, K. (1976). Capital, Vol. 1. Harmondsworth:

Penguin (first published 1867).Mauss, M. (1966).Sociologie et Anthropologie. Paris:

Presses Universitaires de France.Moore, W.E. (1963).Man, Time and Society.New

York: Wiley.Morgan, G. (1986).Images of Organization. New

York: Sage.Mumford, L. (1934).Technics and Civilisation.New

York: Harcourt, Brace & World.Nilsonn, P. (1920).Primitive Time Reckoning.

London: Oxford University Press.Nowotny, H. (1976). Time structuring and time

measurement. In Fraser, J.T. and Lawrence, N.(eds), The Study of Time, Vol. 2. New York:

Springer.Nyland, C. (1990). Capitalism and the history of

work-time thought. In Hassard, J. (ed.),TheSociology of Time. London: Macmillan.

Park, D. (1980).The Image of Eternity: Roots of Timein the Physical World. Amherst: University ofMassachussetts Press.

Pinder, C. and Moore, L. (1979). The resurrection oftaxonomy to aid the development of middle rangetheories of organization behaviour.AdministrativeScience Quarterly, 24, 99–118.

Pollert, A. (1988). The flexible firm: fixation or fact?Work, Employment and Society, 2, 281–316.

Pronovost, G. (1986). Time in a sociological andhistorical perspective.International Social ScienceJournal, 107, 5–18.

Rowlinson, M. and McArdle, L. (1993). Workplaceethnography: a neglected method of the labourprocess. Paper presented at the Labour ProcessConference, Blackpool, UK.

Roy, D.F. (1990). Banana time: job satisfaction andinformal interaction. In Hassard, J. (ed.),TheSociology of Time. London: Macmillan.

Sorokin, P.A. and Merton, R.K. (1937). Social time: amethodological and functional analysis.AmericanJournal of Sociology, 42, 615–629.

Starkey, K.P. (1988). Time and the labour process: atheoretical and empirical analysis. Paper presentedat the Labour Process Conference, AstonUniversity, UK.

Thompson, E.P. (1967). Time, work-discipline andindustrial capitalism.Past and Present, 38, 56–97.

Thompson, P. and McHugh, D. (1998).WorkOrganizations. London: Macmillan

Thrift, N. (1990). Owners’ time and own time: themaking of a capitalist time consciousness 1300–1800. In Hassard, J. (ed.),The Sociology of Time.London: Macmillan.

Tinker, T. (1986). Metaphor or reification?Journal ofManagement Studies, 23, 363–384.

Wright, L. (1968).Clockwork Man. London: Elek.

Commodification,construction andcompression: areview of timemetaphors inorganizationalanalysis

ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001

140