The Temporal Unfolding of Crises: Synchronizing Rhythms and the Construction of Urgency

Abstract

Despite the continuing interest in studying crises, our knowledge of how these adverse situations unfold over time is still fragmented. Based on an empirical study of the German government agency Robert Koch-Institute, which is responsible for disease control and prevention in Germany and hence for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we develop a process model of the constitution of urgency to act in the unfolding of crises based on music theory. In this paper, we argue that such urgency to act, i.e., the tact of a crisis, enables actors to synchronize temporal rhythms of responses to the crisis. In particular, we describe four temporal synchronizing practices—initiating, highlighting, releasing, and aligning—through which actors in organizations synchronize different rhythms of responses to a crisis and aim to create urgency to act. The main contribution of our paper is a more nuanced understanding of the role of temporality in crises in general, and the proactive role of organizations in particular.