Time and organizational routines: Synchronizing contradictory temporalities in innovative projects

Abstract

The role of contradictory temporalities in interconnected routines is understudied despite the pervasiveness of organizational routines. We trace asynchronous design- and production-oriented routine actions in innovative videogame projects. Actors performing the exploratory design routine developed the overall interactive experience of the game. Temporally, these actors faced pressure to iterate quickly with little concern for the quality of their outcomes. Production-oriented actors built the virtual components of the game. Temporally, these actors faced pressure to complete the game and iterate slowly to avoid errors. Our findings reveal how these contradictory temporalities generated asynchronous routine performances that undermined game completion. We also found that mundane actions enabled synchrony. Specifically, actors accomplished synchrony by cueing and bounding flexible routine actions to selectively alter the pace of routines according to immediate priorities. These mundane actions created a dynamic truce, suggesting that participants can enact contradictory temporalities in ways that impact the potential for conflict, and how that conflict can be enacted though routines. Overall, we show how routines with asymmetric temporalities can be coordinated through mundane but strategically important action, thereby demonstrating how routine actions can be a generative source for balancing contradictions in creative work.