Business Commons^™

Temporal Spans In Talk: Doing Consistency To Construct Fair Organization, Jeanie M. Forray, Jill Woodilla

WCBT Faculty Publications

It is generally understood that time, among its other aspects, is a resource in organizational life. In this paper, we take an interpretive perspective to this notion by considering temporality as a verbal resource in the work of organizing. We introduce the concept of 'temporal span' and discuss the ways in which temporal spans serve to establish consistency as an ongoing attribute of organizational reality. Empirical examples drawn from an ethnomethodological study of human resource managers demonstrate interactions during which these managers invoke temporal spans to construct 'fair organization'. We discuss the use of temporality as a verbal resource with …