Beyond the Time Crunch: New Directions in the Sociology of Time and Work

Abstract

The sociology of work is particularly poised to study the meaning of time within institutions and organizations at its most sociological manifestation – the point where groups of people come together to accomplish joint goals. Previous work has offered useful concepts to help us understand temporality and tempography, home and work balance, temporal practices and mindsets towards time. Most of this work, however, which directly or peripherally treats time in the workplace, has focussed on the work–life balance. The actual temporal experiences of workers, however, are relatively absent in this literature. In this review article, I outline previous contributions from sociologists of work and offer ways in which work from the broader literature on the sociology of time can enhance this field. I address how future research should focus on how “time work” is accomplished in workplaces and on issues of class and gender.

Full text

Sociology Compass 8/5 (2014): 478–490, 10.1111/soc4.12151
Beyond the Time Crunch: New Directions in the Sociology
of Time and Work
Lisa-Jo K. van den Scott*
Northwestern University
Abstract
The sociology of work is particularly poised to study the meaning of time within institutions
and organizations at its most sociological manifestation –the point where groups of people
come together to accomplish joint goals. Previous work has offered useful concepts to help
us understand temporality and tempography, home and work balance, temporal practices
and mindsets towards time. Most of this work, however, which directly or peripherally treats
time in the workplace, has focussed on the work–life balance. The actual temporal experiences
of workers, however, are relatively absent in this literature. In this review article, I outline
previous contributions from sociologists of work and offer ways in which work from the
broader literature on the sociology of time can enhance this field. I address how future
research should focus on how “time work”is accomplished in workplaces and on issues of
class and gender.
Academics consistently struggle with issues around time. We have deadlines and families and
a clock counting down our accomplishments against our tenure applications. The sociology
of work is particularly poised to study time at its most sociological manifestation –the point
where groups of people come together to accomplish joint goals. The field, however, has
focussed its efforts, for the most part, on the work–life balance and contemporary effects of
a global economy on this balance but that is not the only aspect of time relevant to the work-
place. The home certainly bears significant importance in all aspects of work; nevertheless,
studies of time and work should not be reduced to this aspect alone.
1
Work on institutional
and organizational time helps add breadth to the field; however, this work primarily exam-
ines how institutions negotiate external temporal demands and establish internal rhythms.
The experience of time is often conspicuously absent.
This article begins with a discussion of the literature on temporal embeddedness
(competing structures with competing time demands) and work–life balance, drawing
out, in particular the temporal constraints around social location, globalization, leisure
and family. I identify the perils and problems around temporal embeddedness such as
role strain (stress resulting from multiple temporal demands) and the commodification
of time and point out potential areas in which to study resistance. The article continues
on to examine the literature on institutional time and organizations, which has extended
the conversation beyond the work–life divide. I outline work on how organizations
control their tempography (internal temporal rhythms) around external demands and
ideologies, as well as around their own mindset and a future orientation. I argue that future
directions should consider the experience of time at work. The temporal experience of the
worker needs attention, how they experience the movement of time and how they
perform time work (i.e. control their sense of time).
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Temporal embeddedness and balance
Although scholars of the sociology of work are interested primarily in work environments, prac-
tices and management, organizations only make up a part of our “timescapes”(Adam 1998).
Jostled, we negotiate the self, families and institutional commitments. Scholars have come up with
aplethoraoftermstodefine and study the manner in which these social systems intersect within
the individual or social group, from “depth levels”(Gurvitch 1964) to “time embeddedness”
(Lewis and Weigert 1981) to “complex hierarchies of interlocking rhythms”(Hall 1983, 140).
All of these concepts refer in some way to how these spheres intersect and interact with each other
and how individuals must prioritize (or have prioritized for them) certain spheres of their lives at
different times throughout the day, a temporal stratification.
Some studies focus on the workplace. Zerubavel (1976), for example, has examined the
“multitude of social cycles cross-cutting one another within any single person”(91) in his
study of hospital rhythms. Here, he analyses both scheduling practices and accessibility in the
workplace and how they differ according to the ideological conceptualization of roles. Nurses,
for example, are considered to be interchangeable and the way their shifts are organized reflect
this assumption. The ideology around the role of doctor, however, dictates that the same
doctor follows through each case and be available when needed.
Many studies around time in the workplace, in fact, centre around medical institutions or
fields (Davis 1956; Diamond 1992; Gerstal et al. 2007; Goffman 1961; Melbin 1969; and
Pringle 1998). Within these locales, different roles, power structures and varying
approaches to managing time intersect, from the rigidity of meal times and shift work to
the instant responses needed in emergency situations. Many of these studies have become
seminal works in the sociology of time, particularly within discussions of rhythm, routine
and behaviour.
Temporal constraints and balance around social location, globalization, leisure and family
Most studies around temporal embeddedness in the sociology of time and work focus on bal-
ance. Rather than examining time solely in the workplace, these studies seek to understand
how temporal constraints from the work environment impact family and vice versa. While
some people are in positions to better maintain boundaries between a public and a private
self (Zerubavel 1979a), and others less so, particularly where class and gender are considered
(Gerstal et al. 2007; Moen 2003), most are affected by new information communication
technologies which make these boundaries more permeable, blurring the lines between
work and interactional time at home (Baxter and Kroll-Smith 2005; D’Abate 2005; Garrett
and Danziger 2008).
2
Questions centre around the negotiation of different life spheres and
balance in a global economy.
A number of terminologies can be listed which scholars in this area use to further explain
and analyse temporal embeddedness with a focus on balance. From “self time,”“interaction
time”and “institutional time”(Lewis and Weigert 1981) to “family time”and “world time”
(Daly 1996) to “time sovereignty”(Altman and Golden 2007), among others, these terms all
find different ways to separate self/family time from other times.
When it comes to negotiating time, individuals find that there are aspects of their lives that
they have no control over, which are “totally environmentally determined;”others over
which they have total control, “totally self determined,”and those over which there is wiggle
room, “socially negotiable”areas (Zerubavel 1976, 91). Individuals must coordinate with
their families and with the world (Daly 1996; Presser 2003). Timetables and schedules are
embedded within other timetables and schedules.
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Roth’s (1963) study, for example, examines how multiple conceptualizations of career
timetable norms can be held among different groups, in his case, doctors, patients and their
families, which results in a constant bargaining process. Here, we see constraints imposed
by a power dynamic. In addition to time characteristics intersecting at the point of the
individual, there are also dynamics in play involving social location.
Temporal constraints may be associated with gender, education, age or cultural orientation,
to name a few (Daly 1996; Moen 2003; Presser 2003; Southerton 2006). Gender, for example,
impacts how individuals conceptualize and plan for their futures (Maines and Hardesty 1987).
Another gender implication is that employed women have less free time (Daly 1996,179)
and are generally temporally worse-off than men (Szalai 1966); however, they also have
developed multitasking strategies which mean they often are better at balancing work and
home lives than men (Moen 2003).
Moen (2003) argues for a gendered life-course perspective which emphasizes the impor-
tance of studying couples as a unit of analysis. She asserts that their “linked lives”play heavily
into the time strains people feel, the time strategies they use, as well as their successes (or not).
She finds that while both spouses may work, the structure at home is still based on the idea
that one person stays home. Many couples fall into what she calls a neo-traditional pattern,
unaware of family-friendly policies in their workplaces.
3
Class must also be factored in. Presser examines the impact of work on families and
marriages but extends her analysis to ask who works non-standard schedules. Two-fifths of
the population in 2003 worked non-standard hours, although they do not prefer this
(Presser 2003). She discovers that the results differ across gender and that there are particular
implications for mothers with low education. Ultimately, she finds that there are both
positive and negative consequences of the challenge of the 24/7 nature of the global
economy but that the presence of children dramatically increases the negative consequences
for relationships and marriage (Presser 2003).
Culture is another constraint. Some cultures are monochronic (a goal-oriented focus with at-
tention to one thing at a time) and others polychronic (multi-tasking and keeping a mind to
various projects or plans at a time) (Bluedorn et al. 1992). Cultures have varying degrees of ded-
ication to schedules. American students in the 1940s, for example, had more fixed and detailed
time schedules which stretched further into the future than did German students (Lewin 1948).
Bluedorn (2002) shows that “some cultures emphasize flexibility …[while] others believe that
plans and schedules should be inviolate”(2). From this, he discusses how different groups come
to socially construct differing understandings and approaches to time through interaction. He
then reflects on how these established and socially constructed organizations of time have
different consequences for societies and groups (Bluedorn 2002). While he is refreshing in
asserting that “the meaning of life is in striving to create times worth living, times worth revering,
times worth treasuring”(2002, 264), he also expects the globalizing trend of homogenization to
continue and for culturally specific practices (such as siesta) to eventually disappear. This theory
may underplay how existing cultures interact with incoming global pressures (Taylor 1999) but is
nevertheless an important observation.
Globalization is certainly a part of this story. Bluedorn (2002) and Daly (1996) argue that as
globalization increases, so too does a common, rational, mathematical time. This suggests a
“temporal commons”where time is uniform across the world (Bluedorn 2002). Adam
(1995), however, points out that there are multiple times around the world. The move
toward temporal rationalization combines with globalization, but the rational system can be
merely a complement outside the Western schema, which facilitates larger coordination, such
as in the case of the Kaguru who blend different levels of adherence to the rational, global
time-reckoning system and the local, culturally-developed system (Beidelman 1963). Poster
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(2007) finds that globalization does indeed privilege certain times (and times zones) over others
in his study of a call centre in India. He shows that there is a stratification of time privilege across
a global economy which means people are not being liberated by time but constrained by it
(Poster 2007), particularly across the global North and South divide.
The global economy adds its temporal pressures to the workplace, but the current cultural
trend in the West contains ideologies and practices around leisure time as well. There is now
an “activity cult”(Zerubavel 1976). The concept of “leisure,”which generally involves a
specific activity, has become more prominent (de Grazia 1962). Although some find that
there has been an increase in actual free time (Robinson 1990), Moen (2003) argues that if
you shift the unit of analysis to the couple, while the rise in hours worked per working
individual may be debated, the rise in hours worked in total by a couple has increased
dramatically which impinges on family life in demanding ways. Our culture embraces a
“dictatorship of speed”(Hassan and Purser 2007) where feeling more harried has become a
cultural norm. We are “supposed”to feel busy now. It would be socially inappropriate for
a graduate student, for example, to act anything other than harried. They must appear busy
both to one another and to themselves.
The general consensus is that the pace of life is accelerating, time is accelerating and accel-
eration is linked to a loss of orientation in the world (Albert 2002; Hassan and Purser 2007).
Surprisingly, however, from a psychological standpoint, those who feel rushed in general are
better off than those who are not busy enough (Robinson 1990). As competing levels of time
and temporal demands intersect, life becomes a balancing act.
Since we associate leisure with work (as its opposite), which revolves around clock time,
leisure time also becomes reliant on clock time (de Grazia 1962). Family time becomes
idealized as the reward of calm and peaceful time after the storm of frenzied work (Daly 1996);
although in practice, this is not the case. Hochschild (1997) has been studying families and their
time experiences for years, first finding that many turned to work as a refuge from the chaotic
strain at home, particularly in dual-income families where Moen’s (2003) neo-traditional work
distribution persists. Hochschild’s (2012) more recent work, however, shows how families
increasingly outsource intimate family work as they strive for idealized down time with family.
As the struggle for balance intensifies in an increasingly tyrannical clock time culture, a
global 24/7 economy and the heightened pace of leisure and family spheres as well, time
becomes a non-spatial territory where schedules can be “tyrannical oppressors”and where
we struggle to create “niches of inaccessibility”(Zerubavel 1976). We create “hot spots”
which condense activities in order to create “cold spots”which provide time for interaction
(Southerton 2003).
Perils and problems: role strain, commodification of time and resistance
As demands for time intersect, “role-strain”ensues (Moore 1963b) which can only be
resolved through temporal stratification, an allocation of priorities connected to values
and ideologies (Lewis and Weiger 1981; Daly 1996). In our culture, time scarcity is
passed down from organizational or institutional, to interactional and to self time;
hence, workplace demands are prioritized leaving the family with only residual claims
on the worker and the self with even less claim (Lewis and Weigert 1981; Moore
1963b). As scarcity moves down the line, secondary adjustments (Goffman 1961),
habitual behaviour which a person develops to get around constraints imposed by the
structure around him or her, are required. Individuals must make adjustments in their
behaviour to offset the challenges of time scarcity. Temporal stratification becomes
necessary for a functioning society.
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Rational clock time, temporal stratification and the dominance of schedules lead to the
social construction of time as a commodity. This view dominates the mentality around
schedules in the West (Adam 1995; Daly 1996) where few pockets of time can escape the
“money nexus”(Nowotny 1994). Time, then, becomes a resource which we can exchange
or hoard to our advantage (Adam 1990).
Time as a commodity and resource carries symbolic meaning. Vail (1999), for example,
finds that in both the opera world and the tattooing world, members use time as a legitima-
tion resource to attain the status of expert. On the other hand, time can also be used “against”
a group as a symbolic demonstration of power, in line with Weber’s (1946) definition of
power as the ability to make others do (or not do) something despite resistance. Schwartz
(1975) and Pringle (1998), for example, study delays and waiting and find that those waiting
interpret their experiences in particular ways. Where “time is money,”wasted time carries
messages about power. Time can be used against another person or group when time is taken
from them as they are forced to wait (Pringle 1998), such as in a doctor’soffice, in VISA
applications and even in parent–child interactions. Additionally, calendars create temporal
segregation which can reveal, establish and reinforce group boundaries (Engel-Frisch 1943;
Zerubavel 1982, 1985). Some groups have temporal dominance (Engel-Frisch 1943), such
as those who work “ideal”nine-to-five jobs, and some are temporally isolated, such as
railway workers (Cottrell 1939).
Time’s exchange value is laden with power concerns, and the battles over time are, in fact,
political battles (Nowotny 1994). Whoever governs the socially constructed definition of
time controls the “dependencies”which derive from it (Nowotny 1994). Much as symbolic
interactionists define power as the ability to create and sustain the definition of the situation
for others (Hall 1972); Nowotny (1994) recognizes the ability to define temporal under-
standings as constituting power.
At the intersection of time’s exchange value, its symbolic construction, and globalization,
the need for synchronization arises. People, companies and nations need to sync schedules
and calendars in order to facilitate the transaction of business. Synchronization leads to the
measurement of smaller and smaller units of time, and they, in turn, bind our days into
precise regulation (Lewis and Weigert 1981). This becomes particularly salient in many
monitored jobs. Computer surveillance can check how quickly employees work, when they
take their bathroom breaks and how much total time they spend working at the computer
during the day.
Zerubavel (1981) points out, however, that while we denigrate the oppressive claim
schedules have on our time, we could also be noting how the schedules may also be one
of the “foremost liberators of the modern individual”by means of protected family or private
time (166). Studies such as Moen’s (2003) often examine middle-class families, a declining
population. We have images of the young professional, harassed and working all hours of
the day and night for that promotion or partnership, to the detriment of his or her family.
Few studies focus on the working poor and their experience of time in and out of the work-
place. Working in a “time ghetto”(Melbin 1978), with unpredictable shift work schedules,
extends the control of employers over the worker beyond the workplace, making it difficult
for them to plan other things or hold jobs. In other ways, schedules may also allow them to
walk away from their jobs at a specific time. The empirical evidence has not been gathered to
properly speak to time experiences across class boundaries.
Groups can also use schedules for overt or subversive resistance. Studies on time fail to
explore these scenarios, studying instead the schedule’s supposed all-powerful control in various
situations. Zerubavel (1981), however, is quite right in encouraging us to acknowledge how
schedules also protect time. Individuals and groups can agentically act and resist within these
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constraints.
4
Consider, for example, the “work to rule”strategy that many unions use to
increase pressure on a corporation, government or employer while avoiding a strike. When
teachers reduce their activity to the strictly defined schedules imposed upon them, they
demonstrate their temporal generosity and highlight how their time is undervalued, both
symbolically and financially. Many events in the school, which parents depend on, cease, such
as after school activities and school plays. Homework or tests may not be corrected because not
enough time exists in the strictly-defined hours of pay to allow for out-of-classroom work by
the teachers.
As another example, thinking more globally around colonization and the market
economy, the Inuit, in Northern Canada, now live in a world defined by the Western
constructs of jobs, work, earning a living and schedules. They resist this onslaught of
economically-centred thinking by turning the concept of the schedule back around
on their employers (largely the government). If the school day starts at 9 AM, many Inuit
teachers will arrive at 8:55 AM. When the clock strikes 5, the school is immediately
vacated by all personnel. Few would sacrifice family time to stay late preparing for class
the next day. This form of subversive resistance separates their world into work (public)
time and family (private) time and serves to protect private time from the further
encroachment of Western beliefs around work. No studies, to my knowledge, explore
these fascinating instances of agency and schedules from the aspect of the sociology of
work and time.
Institutional time and organizations
While many sociology of work and time studies focus on hierarchies of temporal demands
emanating from various social structural systems, others are more interested in time within
institutions. Within time hierarchies, organizations dominate most of our lives. We work
in them, we play in them; we plan our lives according to their schedules. Each organization
has its own rhythm and schedules which create its temporal structure (Fine 1990; Zerubavel
1979a). Fine’s (1990) study of kitchens, for example, shows that there are times when an
organization operates at full capacity and peak times where the demands are high and
everyone is in full swing, as well as down times. Kitchens have rushes (Fine 1990), software
development teams have time pressures (Ancona and Waller 2007) and companies have
project deadlines (Ben 2007).
Just as a variety of terms have been coined to study temporal embeddedness, there are a
plethora of approaches for how to break down and study the rhythm and flow of institutional
time. These range from mapping an organization’s“tempography”(Zerubavel 1979a), to
parsing out periodicity, tempo, timing, duration and sequence (Lauer 1981), to sequence,
rate, synchronization and timing (which encompasses rhythm, routines and recurrence)
(Glaser and Strauss 1968).
Tempographies: external demands and ideologies
Organizations have a remarkable level of autonomy in dictating the rhythm and patterns of
their internal temporality. Organizations are, on the one hand, set apart from other structural
and institutional constraints with their own “common universe of special meanings, goals,
and evaluative rankings”(Davis 1956, 585) and, on the other hand, embedded in communi-
ties and in larger societies, needing to fit into other temporalities, such as expectations around
when to eat meals (Fine 1990). Seminal works in this area, such as Fine’s (1990) study of
kitchens or Zerubavel’s (1979a) study of hospital rhythms focus on service-industry
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organizations. It would be useful to compare the degree to which external temporal forces,
such as demand, impinge upon internal temporal structuring in other organizations.
Bluedorn et al. (1992) find that there is a correlation between organizations which are
externally focussed and their temporal mindset. While no organization can be free of
any and all external constraint, most have a high degree of autonomy in how they
negotiate constraints. As family members go to work, they disperse into fragmented
temporal domains (Daly 1996) with their own internal temporalities created through
this negotiation.
Organizations structure their tempography in ways which reflect ideologies. Zerubavel
(1979b) finds that the moral imperative of “continuous care”surrounding health care
and its implementation is a moral phenomenon which deeply affects the organization
of time within medical institutions such as hospitals. Clock time is another perceived
moral imperative. Landes (1983) reminds us that, following Weber’s understanding of
the Protestant work ethic ([1905] 1998), clock time heightens in importance as a
reflection of the perceived “duty”to use time optimally, resulting in the seductive lure
of efficiency (Zerubavel 1985).
Tempographies: mindset and future orientation
Temporal practices also reflect a temporal mindset. Hall (1983) introduces the terms
“monochronic”and “polychronic,”and Bluedorn et al. (1992) and Bluedorn (2002) expand
these concepts. A monochronic mindset is singularly focussed, with emphasis on being task-
oriented, while a polychronic mind-set is attuned to many things at once and carries with it
higher flexibility, as well as an emphasis on relationships over tasks (Bluedorn et al. 1992).
Organizations also have “time personalities”(Bluedorn et al. 1992). Monochronic
organizations have rigid bureaucratic structuring and a higher ideological commitment to
the organization itself and its goals (Hall 1983). The weakness of monochronic organizations
is blindness towards their members’humanity (Hall 1983). Polychronic organizations are
structured webs of relationships which flow out from a powerful individual, but their
weakness is extreme dependence on the leader (Hall 1983).
One key temporal component to organizations is that they are, in principle, immortal
(Moore 1963a). Organizational time becomes, therefore, future oriented (Lewis and Weigert
1981) with a “planning horizon”which may extend well beyond the life of the planners
(Moore 1963b). To cope, organizations often approach long-term goals with shorter-term
goals, such as 5-year plans (Moore 1963b). The planning horizon, however, can stretch
forward almost infinitely. Religious organizations, for example, may plan on land and
building developments far enough into the future that those involved in the initial phases will
not live to see the results. By setting, however, a 5-year plan to accomplish certain short-term
goals toward the ultimate ends, the group can stay focussed and motivated.
The key component which allows for the mentality of immortality is that organizations
can continue in perpetuity as identical throughout time not only despite shifting membership
(Simmel cited by Zerubavel 1979b) but also because of shifting membership. As workers
expire, other exchangeable workers substitute them without a break in the functioning of
the organization. The institutionalization of functionally equivalent and interchangeable
social actors accompanies bureaucratic increases in impersonalization (Zerubavel 1979b).
While time can almost be infinite for organizations in their long-term planning and
management,
5
their daily running realizes time as both finite and scarce, from both organizational
and individual standpoints (Moore 1963a). Organizational time demands precedence in the lives
of workers (Lewis and Weigert 1981; Poster 2007; Presser 2003), and yet, organizations have
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restricted claim on the time of their members (Moore 1963b), being only one of a number of
organizations and institutions which act as forces in the lives of individuals (Daly 1996), such as
school schedules or garbage pickup.
Experiencing time
The sociology of work has laid the foundation for the study of time within institutions and
organizations, from providing concepts around temporality and tempography to temporal
practices and mindsets. The actual temporal experience of the worker, however, is relatively
absent. The most notable exception is Roy’s (1959) ethnographic study of how factory
workers manage their experience of monotonous work. Roy worked on a factory floor
alongside others engaged in tedious and repetitive work. He found that individual efforts
to keep from “going nuts”can only go so far and that much of the worker’s experience of
time is tied up in the informal interactions of the group. When he inadvertently caused a
social breakdown in the group, bringing the laughter and joking to a close, the implications
for the experience of time were profound (Roy 1959). Although this study created a spring
board for future ethnographies around time, this study has not been reproduced and rarely
added to. Ballard and Seibold (2006) take a more quantitative approach to studying temporal
expectations and job satisfaction, while Perrucci and MacDermid (2007) come the closest in
their study on worker discourses around time, finding that meaning is attached to a worker’s
ability to control that time, yet balance is the ultimate focus of their study.
In short, in over 50 years since this ethnography on the worker’s experience of time in the
workplace, most ethnographies have focussed on institutional rhythms and the work–life
balance. Perlow (1997) offers one exception in her study of engineers working overtime
to meet a project deadline. During the course of her ethnography of how these engineers ex-
perience time, she had them alter their work practices, instituting a few hours of “quiet time”
during their day to focus on work without interruptions from colleagues and bosses and finds
that when this is maintained, workers become much more efficient.
Since Zerubavel’s (1979a) work in hospitals, there has been a growing amount of work on
time in the sociology of work. While the focus on work–life balance emerged from work in
the 1960s (Goffman 1961; Gurvitch 1964; Melbin 1969; Moore 1963a, 1963b), in the 1990s,
researchers turned their attention more actively to this balance (Daly 1996; Hochschild 1997;
May 1999; Nowotny 1994) and to institutional time (Fine 1990). Momentum has been
building around the sociology of work, time and balance since the turn of the century
(Ballard 2007; Bluedorn 2002; D’Abate 2005; Hochschild 2012; Moen 2003; Presser 2003;
Southerton 2003). The field can now turn to the wider work on time to enrich itself.
The movement of time and “time work”
The broader literature around the sociology of time provides concepts and ways in which
to extend the study of the experience of time. The sociology of time springs from
philosophy, using a phenomenological approach which emphasizes process and attunes
the researcher to experience (Denzin 1985; Flaherty 1987; Glaser and Strauss 1968;
Gurvitch 1964; Heidegger [1927] 1996; Mead, 1929, 1932). Time is, essentially, a product
of experience (Mead 1982), an awareness of change (Denzin 1982). Awareness of change
becomes an awareness of sequence, of the idea that something happens first and then
second and so on (Couch 1982); thus, experience becomes temporal, and then, duration
exists (Bergson [1910] 1959), along with the past, present and future.
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As time moves forward, it is measured. Although we count it off in clock time, we expe-
rience the passing of time according to social activities, such as birthdays or promotions,
which are not always linked with rational time (Geertz 1973; Givens 1979; Zerubavel
1997). The measurement of time does not always fit with the feeling of duration. Bergson
[1910](1959) introduces the concepts of durée, lived time and temps, mathematical, clock
time, to explain this distinction. The experience of time (durée) does not flow evenly but is
marked by “critical events”and stretches of empty time (Sorokin [1943] 1964).
Flaherty provides the appropriate tools to take this work further. He tackles the difference
between durée and temps by empirically showing that measured time can be used to convey
the experience of time as flowing faster or more slowly (1999). Most importantly, he intro-
duces the concept of “time work”(Flaherty 2002, 2003, 2011). One can control, to a degree,
how fast time “feels”by engaging in time work, such as making long time seem shorter by
cutting it up into smaller units. This is exactly what Roy (1959) was interested in when he
uncovered how key informal interactions are to making time bearable. Groups can also effect
time work by establishing their own “temporal ecology”(Hodson and Vannini 2007).
Much of the time work we do reproduces the temporal norms of our culture (Flaherty
2003). For example, we understand time as cyclical in many ways. Mondays come and go
and come again. By examining the week and how individuals experience it, Zerubavel
(1985) examines how rhythm is established. Flaherty and Seipp-Williams (2005) find that
the week is such a strong temporal norm that e-mail traffic, despite not being relegated by
the nine-to-five work week, falls into rhythms which match the traditional work week.
Workers can control, to a degree, their own experience of time through time work.
Future studies should explore how time work is accomplished at work. A worker’s time,
however, is not entirely his or her own. While we have recognized that the temporal struc-
turing of an organization affects its members, only a few studies (Davis 1956; Roth 1963),
exclusively in the medical field, focus specifically on how those in positions of power actively
attempt to reshape someone else’s experience of or conceptualization of time, what
Zerubavel (1979a, 1981) would call sociotemporal control. The sociology of work is partic-
ularly well positioned to not only benefit from this wider literature but also to contribute to
it. The political nature of time exists at the interactional level, and the moment where indi-
viduals come together to accomplish goals affords insight into interactions where bosses,
managers or those in positions of control attempt to influence a worker’s experience of time.
Conclusion
The sociology of time offers a rich conceptual framework to study the experience of time, yet
the sociology of work has focussed primarily on time in the context of the work–home–leisure
balance. While this is essential, we must not limit our conversations to temporal embeddedness.
Studies within the broader sociology of time literature which centre on how people experience
time can be brought into the sociology of work to examine how workers experience time in
organizational settings and how they accomplish “time work”(Flaherty 2003, 2011), the
agentic manipulation of how quickly or slowly they experience time. Studies which have
extended the conversation beyond the work–life balance have centred on medical institutions
(Davis 1956; Diamond 1992; Goffman 1961; Melbin 1969; Pringle 1998; Zerubavel 1979a, b)
with a smaller number centred on efficiency or management studies (see Lee and Liebenau
1999) and software or engineering firms which have specific forms of project deadlines (Ben
2007; Perlow 1997). It would be useful to expand our horizons to examine the worker’s
experience and negotiation of time as interactional within sites where alternate moral impera-
tives may guide temporality, such as law firms, airports or insurance companies.
486 New Directions in the Sociology of Time and Work
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The broader literature supplies the important concept of “time work,”but, with few excep-
tions, fails to examine situations in which those in positions of influence over others attempt to
control the experience of time. Time, however, is co-constructed and emergent through interac-
tions (Ballard 2007). The sociology of work can contribute to this literature because it is naturally
situated to study the manipulation of others in controlled environments, such as the workplace.
Throughout all of this, scholars much continually raise the cry of class and gender. While
many have pointed out the lack of gender analysis in early work (Daly 1996; Maines and
Hardesty 1987; Moen 2003; Presser 2003), studies often fall short, only mentioning gender
as a token comparison. Gender intersects with all life experiences and is a key component
of one’s social location. Women experience moving through the world, and the workplace,
in very different ways than men do, even in the same roles. I can only add my voice to
encourage researchers to view their settings through a gendered lens.
Class is even more lacking. Jacobs and Gerson (2004) introduce the concept of the
“occupational divide”to bring attention to time inequality among classes in the United
States. The experiences of the much-studied middle class increasingly cannot represent the time
experiences of all. Roles at work vary drastically in terms of power dynamics and, as a result, the
way time is used and experienced. The working poor and the unemployed each have unique
relationships to, and problems around, time and work which are little understood. Studies
covering all aspects of the sociology of work and time must contextualize the experiences of
their participants within their social locations.
Short Biography
Lisa-Jo van den Scott’s research works at the intersection of symbolic interactonism, urban
sociology and science and technology studies. She has authored work on the interaction of
two knowledge systems in the Canadian arctic, as well as aeroplane travel. Her current
research engages with sociology of walls, examining how the Inuit form relationships with
their homes, from definitions of public and private to identity work via the use of wall-
as-tool to display social artifacts. Van den Scott is currently completing her PhD at
Northwestern University and has won three graduate student paper awards during her time
there. She also currently serves as the division chair for the Environment and Technology
division of the Society for the Study of Social Problems.
Notes
* Correspondence address: Lisa-Jo K. van den Scott, Northwestern University. E-mail: ljvandenscott@u.northwestern.edu
1
Thank you to the editor for aiding in the development of a more clearly articulated argument.
2
There is a wide literature on information–communication technologies (ICTs), largely based on communications
studies (see Arnold (2004); Arnold et al. 2006; Golden and Geisler (2007); Lee (1999); Nansen et al. (2009); and
Wajcman et al. (2009)).
3
Moen (2003) also examines time issues from the perspective of same sex couples.
4
May (1999) does argue that we must study time and resistance, with a focus on power.
5
For a discussion of the literature surrounding time in management studies and business, see Lee and Liebenau (1999).
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