temporality and information systems research

Córais Faisnéise BainistíochtaManagement Information Systems

Research Seminar Series 2014-2015

“Temporality & Information Systems Research”

Dr Niamh O Riordan

15th October, 2014

UCD Centre for Innovation, Technology & Organisation (CITO)

Agenda

• The question of time

– What do we mean by time?

• The question of scope

– Two thousand years of Western Philosophy?

– The laws of physics and our understanding of the nature of the universe?

– Narrowing the field: temporality of being

– Future avenues

Management Information Systems Córais Faisnéise Bainistíochta

THE QUESTION OF TIME


Food for thought…

1. What does time mean to you? How would you define it?

2. Is time something that is independent of us and events taking place in the world?

3. Is time an objective entity or it is purely a subjective experience?

4. Is it true that time somehow flows from the future to the past?

5. If yes, how can we know this and must we assume time only flows in one direction?

What is time?

Formally?

• A non-spatial continuum in which events occur in apparently

irreversible succession from the past through the present to the

future - Ancona et al, 2001, p. 513

In everyday language?

• Time is a noun (“the time we went to Auckland”)

• Time is a verb (“I’m timing your presentation”)

• Time is an adjective (“a well-timed workshop”)

Temporal concepts are pervasive and polymorphous

• Making time? Saving time? Keeping time?



Biological, psychological and anthropological time

Clock time

The Philosophy of Time

http://youtu.be/o4xVOi8cHt0

A theory, B theory and

McTaggary’s Paradox

http://youtu.be/iB7xZR-1L5M

The reversibility of time

http://youtu.be/4XybFYCt3OY

Objective v Subjective

External v Internal

Linear v Cyclical

Absolute v Relative

Food for thought…

1. What kind of assumptions about time are made in your research?

1. In particular, what kind of assumptions are made about time when we try to explain / predict?

a. When we say that x causes y, we tend to assume that x occurs before y. Why? b. When we say that x causes y, how much of a time gap should we accept between x and y?c. When we say that x causes y, must x actually occur? d. Could some expectation of some possible future x be enough to cause y?

2. To what extent does your research take a dynamic or process oriented view of the world?

1. How do you capture or represent that perspective in your research? In particular, how do you represent temporal patterns, rhythms, patterns or trends in your research?

1. What other kinds of methodological choices are affected by timing issues?

THE QUESTION OF SCOPE



Some underlying currents

Practices “exist only in the temporal dimension of the urgency of engagement and

cannot survive in the reversible universe of rules and formal logic” – Nicolini, 2012, p.

63

We are rooted in the past and thrust into the future – Polt (1999, p. 5)

The future is, in a way, the source of the past… ‘we are [what]

we were, and we will be what we receive and appropriate from

what we were’… my past gets its meaning from me only from

my projection of a future– Polt (1999, p. 96)

Time directly impacts the what, how, and why elements of a theory - George and Jones, 2000, p. 658

Science has a time which is not that of practice- Bordieu, 1977, p. 9

Every individual is conscious of an inner flow of time

- Berger and Luckmann (1966, p. 40)

The world of everyday life “has its own standard time which is intersubjectively available”- Berger and Luckmann (1966, p. 40)

Polychronicity “is a continuum describing the

extent to which people engage themselves in two

or more activities simultaneously” - Bluedorn, 2002, p. 48

The greater the speed of

the strategic decision

process, the greater the

performance [of

organisations] in high-

velocity environments- Eisenhardt, 1989, p. 567

Digital natives exhibit (i) a craving for speed,

(ii) a desire to multitask, (iii) a preference for

collaboration and constant connectivity, (iv)

an expectation of immediate feedback and

‘payoff’ for their efforts- Prensky, 2001, p. 442

Barley found that the new

computer-based equipment

increased the monocrhonicity of

radiologists’ work… [and] in turn

enhanced the symmetry of temporal

organization between radiologists’

and technicians’ work - Lee and Liebenau, 2000, p. 50

Food for thought…

1. To what extent have new technologies affected the use and experience of time in firms?

2. To what extent have your own work practices been affected by ICTs?

3. How have the dynamics of your interaction with colleagues/students changed because of ICTs?

4. To what extent have your students' study practices been affected by ICTs?

5. To what extent have these changes made you / your students more productive / efficient?

6. What are the long term effects of increased velocity on organisations at a strategic level?


Two main streams of research…

For a relaxing time, make it Centauri Time.

… and TemporalityCan an instantaneous cube exist?

chronos v kairos

real time

past - present - future

temporal schemata

kairos

ho

rolo

gy

chronometry

time pressure

du

rati

on

coordination

technology sociotemporality

absolute v relative objective v subjective

temporal decision-making biases

fungible v epochal

(digitally mediated) Being…Do avatars dream of electric sheep?

process oriented

(auto)ethnographicgenerativityexploitation

procedural

An agenda: the temporality of Being

• To address what Bergson describes as a profound mistake of

“reducing the qualitative difference between past, present

and future to a simple quantitative distinction”:

– The past, present and future are always with us: we bring our background to new situations and our actions are based on future imaginings or projections

– In this sense, people cannot act in the world except on the basis of their prior knowledge

– In this sense, innovation, as a phenomenon, must also be defined in relation to the past



• O Riordan, N., Conboy, K., Acton, T. (2013) How Soon is Now? Theorizing

Temporality in Information Systems Research. International Conference on

Information Systems (ICIS). Milan.

• O Riordan, N., Acton, T., Conboy, K., Golden, W. (2012) The Clockwork

Organisation: Proposing a new theory of organisational temporality Proceedings of

the JAIS Theory Development Workshop. Orlando, Florida

• O Riordan, N., O’Reilly, P., Duane, A. and Andreev, P. (2014). “Business model

innovation: a temporal perspective”. Forthcoming at the Australian Conference on

Information Systems (ACIS)

• O Riordan, N. “In search of lost time: investigating the temporality of student

engagement, the role of learning technologies, and implications for student

performance”. Forthcoming at the Australian Conference on Information Systems

(ACIS)

• O Riordan, N., Action, T., Conboy, K., Golden, W. (2012) It’s About Time:

Investigating the Temporal Parameters of Decision-Making in Agile Teams.

Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Information Systems

Development (ISD). Prato

• O Riordan, N. Lohan, G. Mind the gaps: increasing the impact of IS research on ISD

performance improvement. Forthcoming at the Australian Conference on Information

Systems (ACIS)


Dr Niamh O Riordan PhD MBS HDip BA

Lecturer in Information Systems and Organisation

Q235 UCD School of Business | University College Dublin | Belfield | Dublin 4 | Ireland

t: +353 (0) 1 716 4723

e: [email protected]

w: www.niamhoriordan.com

l: ie.linkedin.com/in/niamhoriordan/