Hans Rämö

Doing Things Right and Doing the Right Things. Time and Timing in Projects.

Abstract This paper discusses the relationship between time and project management in the context of clock-times rule of doing things right according to deadlines, and doing the right things at the right moment, irrespective of clock-time. It is argued that clock-time (chronos time) is the ruling factor in efficiency and timely moments (kairos time) are crucial in questions of effectiveness. This distinction is accentuated by the importance in managing project organisations to do the right things in that such organisations are less institutionalised than more permanent (going concern) organisations and have to deal with unplanned situations more frequently as compared with permanent organisations.

An Aristotelian Human Time-Space Manifold: From Chronochora to Kairotopos

The two Greek notions of time, chronos and kairos, and their spatial counterparts, chora and topos, are discussed in conjunction with some Aristotelian notions of human action, namely, theoria/episteme, poiesis/techne, and praxis/phronesis. From this discussion follows a unification of these Greek spatio-temporal notions into chronochora, chronotopos, kairochora, and kairotopos, which correspond to a move from abstract scientific time-space towards a concrete and meaningful time and place. Finally, these time and space notions are discussed in the contemporary organizational settings of time management (e.g. Just-In-Time) and virtual organizations, and their different forms of abstraction are alluded to.

Moments of trust: temporal and spatial factors of trust in organizations

Different forms of trust in the contemporary organizational settings of virtual organizations and time management (e.g., just‐in‐time, lean production, and total quality management) are discussed in conjunction with some Greek philosophical notions of human action, namely theoria/episteme, poiesis/techne, and praxis/phronesis, together with the two notions of time, chronos/kairos and their spatial counterparts, chora/topos. It is suggested that time management concepts in production line settings are frequently based upon asymmetric power‐relations and rigid time‐control making most forms of organizational trust instrumental and/or weak. Virtual organization settings, on the other hand, are more likely to contain trust that appears to be fragile and temporal, and in demand of communication based on right moments to act judiciously.

Spatio-temporal Notions and Organized Environmental Issues: An Axiology of Action

The aim of this paper is to bring together temporal and spatial notions into a different set of axiologic pairs, and to trace examples in which such a set of pairs might be illuminating in accounts of how environmental issues are perceived in various social science disciplines. The paper begins with a division of time into reified clock time (chronos) and timely kairos time, together with a spatial division between abstract space (chora) and concrete place (topos). To better comprehend these originally Greek spatial and temporal notions, some Aristotelian concepts of human action will also be used (i.e. theoria/episteme, poiesis/techne and praxis/phronesis). These extended notions of human action, time and space/place are discussed in conjunction with aesthetics, ethics and environmental issues in the different organizational settings of science, mass media, business management and environmentalism.

Time and Space in New Public Management Reform : The Case of Geriatric Care

Implications of new public management (NPM) have been studied from several theoretical perspectives. This paper argues that there is a missing dimension to the theoretical debate regarding NPM refo ...

An Office on the Go: Professional Workers, Smartphones and the Return of Place

In this paper, the authors examine how senior managers, as professional workers, in a leading ICT company use smartphones, according to new configurations of time and space. Of special interest is how smartphones act as comforting handheld consoles without being rooted in physical location. Three non-physical places, as spatial nodes, are presented: pause in the temporal current, place as a function of the intensity of communication, and place in terms of becoming rooted by felt value. The authors argue that highlighting non-physical places as structures emanating from the use of smartphones is an important variable to account for when studying how professionals use smartphones, both in instrumental and non-instrumental terms.

Sustaining Sustainable Developments: Visionary Imperatives or Feasible Concepts for Management?

Sustaining Sustainable Developments: Visionary Imperatives or Feasible Concepts for Management

Intermediary activities and agendas of regional cleantech networks in Sweden

A vision of cleantech has been implemented on an international scale with financial assistance, new organizations and programmes. Given the wider contexts of political and commercial promotion, this article investigates management and governance of eight cleantech networks operating in different regions in Sweden. The aim of this article is to explore how an integrated approach based on network theories of economic sociology and a regional development perspective can contribute to the study of network intermediaries. What roles do intermediaries play in triple-helix networks? A suggested answer to this question is a typology of three intermediaries: a brokerage function for business agreements, a facilitation function whereby actors facilitate various processes and co-ordinate arrangements and a legitimizing function involving activities conducted in the political and wider societal realms. The legitimiser role of regional cleantech networks has important feedback effects on the wider discourses of environmental development, of which cleantech is a particular and influential vision.

Time and temporality in online corporate pictorials

Many different social contexts are embedded in, and mediated by, visual practices, so too in corporate communication. The specific aim of this paper is to use the concept of scopic regimes as a means of understanding pictorial representations of time and temporality in online corporate communication. It is argued in this paper that the temporal reference has changed direction, from pointing backward to forward. What has been a matter of predominantly portraying important corporate achievements to posterity has increasingly become a matter of appearing for impatient online viewers today as responsible for the future. Three illustrative examples of time and temporality in online corporate pictorials are included and discussed, representing movement, moment, and the allegory of time.

Spatiotemporal Typologies of Marketing Communication

Theories on marketing communication settings are generally analyzed with a partisan focus on chronological time, and abstract space. In order to comprehend the spatiotemporal complexity of contemporary marketing communication calls for a pendulum between different representations of abstract and concrete representations of time and timing, and space and place. Four Greek spatiotemporal notions of time and space: clock-time (chronos) timely moments (kairos), abstract/virtual space (chora) and concrete place (topos) are discussed in conjunction with two dimensions of managerial performance: efficiency, which is concerned with doing things right, and effectiveness, which is about doing the right things. Efficiency, effectiveness, and the extended notions of time/timing and space/place are discussed in relation to some well-known marketing communication situations (e.g., Face-to-face Encounters with customers, Marketing Mix, Internet Marketing, and Telemarketing). It is argued that clock-time (chronos) is the ruling factor in efficiency and timely moments (kairos) are crucial in questions of effectiveness. This distinction is accentuated by the importance in marketing communication to do the right things in the right place/space in that such actions have to deal frequently with unplanned situations, which cannot be fully grasped or illustrated with clock-time and space only.