It’s time to take time seriously in the theory of temporary organizations

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Time is at the heart of the theory of temporary organizations yet its implications are not well-developed, as the theory remains wedded to a narrow view of time. Different conceptualizations of time are pursued in isolation or framed as either-or choices, thereby lacking synthesis across the literature. To rectify this problem, we analyze the literature on temporary organizations and identify three prevailing streams of research on time as: a scarce resource , temporal structures , and processual flow . Accordingly, we augment extant theory with a combination of clock time, event time, and process time. We demonstrate how this time-based theory of temporary organizations offers new cross-fertilizations between either-or conceptualizations of time and cues for temporal theorizing. • Paper takes stock of literature on temporary organizations. • Paper argues time remains narrow in theory of temporary organizations. • Paper notes conceptualizations of time are framed in either-or choices. • Paper proposes a time-based theory of temporary organizations. • Paper augments existing theory with clock time writ large, event time, and process time.