Dawna I. Ballard

Communicating And Organizing In Time: A Meso-Level Model of Organizational Temporality

The authors propose a theoretical framework identifying how work group members’ experience of time is created and sustained through task-related communication structures. The model addresses 10 dimensions of time—separation, scheduling, precision, pace, present time perspective, future time perspective, flexibility, linearity, scarcity, and urgency—and proposes how three communication structures central to organizational work—coordination methods, workplace technologies, and feedback cycles—contribute to members’ temporal experience. The model incorporates the complex interplay among cultural, environmental, and individual factors as well. Testable propositions intended to guide future research are offered.

Organizational members' communication and temporal experience: Scale development and validation.

This article reports the findings of scale development and validation efforts centered on 10 dimensions of organizational members’ temporal experience identified in previous research. Consistent with a community-of-practice perspective, 395 members of five organizational units indicated their agreement with a series of statements regarding the day-to-day words and phrases they use to describe their activities, work-related events, and general timing needs. Results of a confirmatory factor analysis provided support for the hypothesized enactments of time and construals of time. Organizational members’ enactments of time included dimensions relating to flexibility, linearity, pace, precision, scheduling, and separation, and their construals of time included dimensions concerning scarcity, urgency, present time perspective, and future time perspective. A new dimension, delay, was found. Implications for pluritemporalism in organizations and the study of time in communication are discussed.

Time orientation and temporal variation across work groups: Implications for group and organizational communication

This investigation sought to identify theoretically coherent and empirically robust dimensions underlying work group members’ perceptions of time (RQ1). We also tested the degree to which members’ time orientation varied across work groups (H1). Utilizing data from a self‐administered questionnaire completed by 337 employees of a national cable subcontractor with offices located in three regions of the United States, we identified three theoretically significant dimensions of time—separation, concurrency, and flexibility—via factor analysis (RQ1). The results of a discriminant function analysis conducted to test temporal differences among organizational groups supported H1. The findings suggest that work groups differ in theoretically meaningful ways with regard to time orientation and that their varied communication demands and patterns may contribute to these differences. Qualitative data are used to elaborate these results. Implications of these findings for communication, in general, and for group and organizational studies, in particular, are discussed, and several propositions for future research are offered.

Alternative Times: Temporal Perceptions, Processes, and Practices Defining the Nonstandard Work Relationship

Alternative notions of temporality are the defining quality of nonstandard work relationships such as temporary jobs, contract labor, part-time employment, and various forms of telework. These arrangements challenge traditional boundaries of personal versus work time, call into question unlimited versus conditional time limits for membership, and highlight seasonal versus steady-state orientations toward production. This chapter focuses on the unique temporal perceptions, processes, and practices associated with nonstandard work arrangements that shape and are shaped by communication in local and global circumstances, spanning multiple levels of organizational analysis and, indeed, diverse areas of our discipline. Given the position of time as a constitutive communication construct, examining the intersection of time and nonstandard work relationships lends value to investigations on a wide variety of important “life” issues. For instance, contemporary stakeholder conversations surrounding issues of work-life balance, a changing life span and lifestyle, and global community have all been accompanied by increased discussion of non-standard work relationships. The temporal dimension of these discourses foregrounds the role of communication in shaping the quality of members lives in both professional and personal domains.

Communication and Materiality: A Conversation from the CM Café

The Communication Monographs Cafe´ first opened six months ago when it hosted agroup of scholars to talk about issues social justice and public scholarship. Theconversation was wide-ranging and stimulating, so we knew it was important to openthe Cafe´ on a regular basis for more interaction about the issues that are engagingtoday’s communication researchers. This time, we opened the Cafe´ during thesummer months*iced drinks were the norm, and there was a bit of coming andgoing with busy schedules of travel and school responsibilities closing down. ThisCafe´opening was initially suggested by Tim Kuhn (University of Colorado) and PaulLeonardi (Northwestern University) who were interested in talking about theintersection of communication, materiality, and knowledge. Four other scholarswere also excited to be part of the conversation: Mark Aakhus (Rutgers University),Dawna Ballard (University of Texas), Andrew Flanagin (University of CaliforniaSanta Barbara), and Jennifer Mease (Texas A&M University).As before, the CM Cafe´was facilitated through a private group on Facebook. And,as before, this setting for the Cafe´ was both enabling in allowing for asynchronousengagement in the conversation and constraining (i.e., an entire post from Paul waslost in the ether and Mark at one point posted ‘‘I really hate this FB interface’’).As you’ll see, however, the Facebook context was also important fodder for thediscussion! The talk in the Cafe´ was wide-ranging and engaging, covering issues ofdefinition, theory, and application. Interestingly, though the conversation turned onoccasion to the issue of knowledge originally planned for the Cafe´, the majority ofposts concerned topics of materiality and communication. Thus, given the spaceconstraints of the journal and the volume of posts to choose from, I decided toconcentrate on issues of communication and materiality in my excerpting of theconversation. I organized the text here by first considering the initial question I raisedin the Cafe´ regarding materiality and communication. Three threads of explicationemerged from this question, and then the conversation converged on an example.From there, Cafe´ participants attended to related questions of technology and whatcommunication scholars can contribute to the ongoing research. So I invite you,reader, to pour yourself a beverage and enjoy the conversation.**********

PERCEPTIONS OF INTERGENERATIONAL COMMUNICATION ACROSS CULTURES: AN ITALIAN CASE

406 Anglo-American, Italian-American, and Italian (Northern and Southern Italy) students were asked to evaluate past conversations with same-age peers, i.e., 17 to 30 years, and older adults, i.e., 65 years and older While according older adults more deference, all cultural groups perceived older adults as more rigid and nonaccommodating than younger adults. Exchanges with older adults were reported as having more negative affect than were those with other young adults, and were also more likely to be avoided.

Communication for the Long Term Information Allocation and Collective Reflexivity as Dynamic Capabilities

In this commentary, we propose that two communication practices, information allocation and collective reflexivity, are dynamic capabilities that help develop a firm’s long-term viability. The concept that an organization’s actions or inaction constrain or enhance its future options and outcomes and—ultimately—its long-term survival, is the organization’s viability. We discuss two facilitating conditions—presence awareness and organizational identification—and three organizational issues influencing the two communication practices that affect organizational viability—organizational members’ perceived environmental uncertainty, organizational members’ perceived scarcity of time, and feedback cycles between actions and outcomes that shape and are shaped by their temporal focus.

Measure Twice, Cut Once: The Temporality of Communication Design

The familiar folk saying, “Measure twice, cut once,” with origins in carpentry design certainly indicates that the issue of measurement is central to good design work. The equally important—if implicit—wisdom to which it points is that it takes more time, or a careful pace of action, to do so properly. To develop our central arguments about the temporality of communication design, we first describe how the consideration of varying time scales offers great utility in the communication design enterprise and elaborate on the designable features of temporality for human interaction. Next, we draw on Ballards typology of work-based activity cycles to offer some temporally based design principles for the design of work. We then apply these insights to various work activities that unfold at various time scales and illustrate how concern with temporality (rather than only time) may lead to a redesign of communication. In the conclusion, we attend to an underlying issue implicated throughout the preceding discussion: the pace at which the designer proceeds.

Time and Time Again: The Search for Meaning/fulness Through Popular Discourse on the Time and Timing of Work

Many working individuals struggle with the time and timing of work, and often turn to books, web sites, magazines, seminars, and workshops to assist in their struggle to find meaning/fulness in work. In the present article, we first adopt Hassards (2002) pluri-paradigmatic perspective on organizational temporality to consider the limitations of popular discourse that organizational members draw on in their day-to-day interaction. We consider themes in this discourse along three tropes—commodification, construction, and compression—intended to help members address widely held concerns associated with the time and timing of work. Our analysis highlights problematic issues arising from the focus of one trope over the others. We conclude by considering Adams (2004) macro-level framework of temporal control to suggest broad implications of popular discourse on the time and timing of work.

Making time/making temporality for engaged scholarship

ABSTRACT Research on engaged scholarship has demonstrated that it requires substantial investments of time and requires the negotiation of research partners’ multiple, differing time horizons. Although the importance of time as a resource in research collaborations is generally recognized, the implications of temporal difference among research partners need further exploration. Drawing on the meso-level model of organizational temporality, we develop a heuristic framework for analyzing the temporal enactments, temporal construals, and the designable features of temporality in key practices of engagement, namely, co-missioning, co-designing, and co-enacting. The framework is illustrated with the authors’ firsthand accounts of multiple engaged research projects that highlight concrete strategies for managing the temporal difficulties of long-term engagement.