The “Other” Time: A Review of the Subjective Experience of Time in Organizations

Abstract

Time—whether objective (“clock”) time or the subjective experience of time—is essential for understanding how individuals, teams, and organizations evolve, grow, learn, and change. Yet most management research and literature reviews typically emphasize objective time to the exclusion of subjective time. Our review focuses on this lesser studied “other” time, beginning with a review of how seminal time articles have historically conceptualized subjective time. From this initial review, we offer an integrative and multilevel definition of subjective time as the experience of the past, present, and future, which occurs as individuals and collectives mentally travel through, perceive, and interpret time. Then, using this new definition to frame the remainder of the review, we examine the literature employing subjective time concepts to address three key questions: what is subjective time, how does it operate, and why does it matter? Our analysis provides new ways for understanding subjective time and the important role it plays in organizational phenomena. We conclude by challenging management scholars to consider three priorities for future research: the fundamental relationship between subjective time and meaning, the unclear nature of event time, and the ways in which objective time is dependent upon subjective time.