The Temporal Dynamics of Busyness and Overwork

Abstract

This symposium aims to bring together researchers who study the temporality of work and life in and around organizations and focus on phenomena such as overwork, time famine, and busyness. Prior research has explored how organizations exert various normative pressures on employees to work extreme hours. However, the temporal dynamics underlying persistent patterns of overwork and busyness have remained more implicitly than explicitly studied and theorized. Against this background, this symposium explores how the constitution of time and temporality in organizing is entangled with the emergence, evolution, and maintenance of temporal patterns such as overwork and busyness. The symposium will include presentations on: (1) an integrative theoretical framework on the influence of the social context on individual time use at work, (2) how certain temporal experiences generated by work practices may become addictive, (3) temporal commitments and the enlisting of others time in support of ideal worker behavior, and (4) the mutual constitution of extra-long hours regimes and system-environment dynamics at an elite consulting firm. The Social Context of Individual Time Use at Work: A Review and Integrative Framework Presenter: Elana Feldman; U. of Massachusetts, Lowell Presenter: Erin Marie Reid; McMaster U. The Cycle of Busyness: How Professionals Get Addicted to the Timeflow of Busyness Presenter: Ioana Lupu; ESSEC Business School France Presenter: Joonas Rokka; EMLYON Business School Temporal commitment and the collective scaffolding of the ideal worker Presenter: Melissa Mazmanian; U. of California, Irvine Presenter: Christine Beckman; Robert H. Smith School of Business, U. of Maryland The formation of persistent working time regimes Presenter: Blagoy Blagoev; Leuphana U. Lüneburg Presenter: Georg Schreyogg; Freie U. Berlin