Business Commons^™

The Relationship Between Polychronicity And Social Networks: A Mixed-Methods Study Of Research And Development Professionals, Fabiola Bertolotti, Elisa Mattarelli, Janet Dukerich

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

How do knowledge workers interact with their colleagues when organizations increasingly ask them to work on multiple activities, projects and working spheres simultaneously? Given the importance of social networks for individual and organizational success, in this study we explore the relationship between individual preferences for engaging in multiple tasks simultaneously (individual polychronicity), the perception of the organization’s demands in terms of engaging in multiple tasks simultaneously (organizational polychronicity), and centrality in instrumental networks. Adopting a mixed-methods approach, we collected data from knowledge professionals in a research and development (R&D) unit. Our results show that both individual and organizational polychronicity were …