Research seminar on temporality and information systems research presented at UCD's CITO Research Seminar Series

1. UCD Centre for Innovation, Technology & Organisation (CITO)
Research Seminar Series 2014-2015
“Temporality & Information Systems Research”
Dr Niamh O Riordan
15th October, 2014
Management Information Systems Córais Faisnéise Bainistíochta

2. Agenda
• The question of time
– What do we mean by time?
• The question of scope
– Two thousand years of Western Philosophy?
– The laws of physics and our understanding of the
nature of the universe?
– Narrowing the field: temporality of being
– Future avenues
Management Information Systems  Córais Faisnéise Bainistíochta

3. THE QUESTION OF TIME
Management Information Systems  Córais Faisnéise Bainistíochta

4. Food for thought…
1. What does time mean to you? How would you define it?
2. Is time something that is independent of us and events taking place in the world?
3. Is time an objective entity or it is purely a subjective experience?
4. Is it true that time somehow flows from the future to the past?
5. If yes, how can we know this and must we assume time only flows in one direction?

5. What is time?
Formally?
• A non-spatial continuum in which events occur in apparently
irreversible succession from the past through the present to the
future - Ancona et al, 2001, p. 513
In everyday language?
• Time is a noun (“the time we went to Auckland”)
• Time is a verb (“I’m timing your presentation”)
• Time is an adjective (“a well-timed workshop”)
Temporal concepts are pervasive and polymorphous
• Making time? Saving time? Keeping time?
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6. Objective v Subjective
External v Internal
Linear v Cyclical
Absolute v Relative
Biological, psychological and anthropological time
Clock time
The Philosophy of Time
http://youtu.be/o4xVOi8cHt0
A theory, B theory and
McTaggary’s Paradox
http://youtu.be/iB7xZR-1L5M
The reversibility of time
http://youtu.be/4XybFYCt3OY
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7. Food for thought…
1. What kind of assumptions about time are made in your research?
1. In particular, what kind of assumptions are made about time when we try to explain /
predict?
a. When we say that x causes y, we tend to assume that x occurs before y. Why?
b. When we say that x causes y, how much of a time gap should we accept between x and y?
c. When we say that x causes y, must x actually occur?
d. Could some expectation of some possible future x be enough to cause y?
2. To what extent does your research take a dynamic or process oriented view of the world?
1. How do you capture or represent that perspective in your research? In particular, how do
you represent temporal patterns, rhythms, patterns or trends in your research?
1. What other kinds of methodological choices are affected by timing issues?

8. THE QUESTION OF SCOPE
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9. Some underlying currents
We are rooted in the past and thrust into the future
– Polt (1999, p. 5)
The future is, in a way, the source of the past… ‘we are [what]
we were, and we will be what we receive and appropriate from
what we were’… my past gets its meaning from me only from
Every individual is conscious of an inner flow of time
- Berger and Luckmann (1966, p. 40)
Digital natives exhibit (i) a craving for speed,
(ii) a desire to multitask, (iii) a preference for
collaboration and constant connectivity, (iv)
an expectation of immediate feedback and
‘payoff’ for their efforts
- Prensky, 2001, p. 442
Polychronicity “is a continuum describing the
extent to which people engage themselves in two
or more activities simultaneously”
- Bluedorn, 2002, p. 48
The greater the speed of
the strategic decision
process, the greater the
performance [of
increased the monocrhonicity of
radiologists’ work… [and] in turn
enhanced the symmetry of temporal
organization between radiologists’
organisations] in high-velocity
environments
- Eisenhardt, 1989, p. 567
Barley found that the new
computer-based equipment
and technicians’ work
- Lee and Liebenau, 2000, p. 50
The world of everyday life “has its own standard time which is intersubjectively available”
- Berger and Luckmann (1966, p. 40)
Practices “exist only in the temporal dimension of the urgency of engagement and
cannot survive in the reversible universe of rules and formal logic” – Nicolini, 2012, p.
Science has a time which is not that of practice- Bordieu, 1977, p. 9
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63
my projection of a future
– Polt (1999, p. 96)
Time directly impacts the what, how, and why elements of a theory - George and Jones, 2000, p. 658

10. Food for thought…
1. To what extent have new technologies affected the use and experience of time in firms?
2. To what extent have your own work practices been affected by ICTs?
3. How have the dynamics of your interaction with colleagues/students changed because of ICTs?
4. To what extent have your students' study practices been affected by ICTs?
5. To what extent have these changes made you / your students more productive / efficient?
6. What are the long term effects of increased velocity on organisations at a strategic level?

11. Two main streams of research…
(digitally mediated) Being…
fungible v epochal
… and Temporality
procedural
For a relaxing time, make it Centauri Time.
Can an instantaneous cube exist?
past - present - future
Management Information Systems  Córais Faisnéise Bainistíochta
chronos v kairos
real time
temporal schemata
kairos
horology
chronometry
time pressure
duration
coordination
technology sociotemporality
absolute v relative objective v subjective
temporal decision-making biases
Do avatars dream of electric sheep?
process oriented
generativity (auto)ethnographic
exploitation

12. An agenda: the temporality of Being
• To address what Bergson describes as a profound mistake of
“reducing the qualitative difference between past, present
and future to a simple quantitative distinction”:
– The past, present and future are always with us: we
bring our background to new situations and our actions
are based on future imaginings or projections
– In this sense, people cannot act in the world except on
the basis of their prior knowledge
– In this sense, innovation, as a phenomenon, must also
be defined in relation to the past
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13. • O Riordan, N., Conboy, K., Acton, T. (2013) How Soon is Now? Theorizing
Temporality in Information Systems Research. International Conference on
Information Systems (ICIS). Milan.
• O Riordan, N., Acton, T., Conboy, K., Golden, W. (2012) The Clockwork
Organisation: Proposing a new theory of organisational temporality Proceedings of
the JAIS Theory Development Workshop. Orlando, Florida
• O Riordan, N., O’Reilly, P., Duane, A. and Andreev, P. (2014). “Business model
innovation: a temporal perspective”. Forthcoming at the Australian Conference on
Information Systems (ACIS)
• O Riordan, N. “In search of lost time: investigating the temporality of student
engagement, the role of learning technologies, and implications for student
performance”. Forthcoming at the Australian Conference on Information Systems
(ACIS)
• O Riordan, N., Action, T., Conboy, K., Golden, W. (2012) It’s About Time:
Investigating the Temporal Parameters of Decision-Making in Agile Teams.
Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Information Systems
Development (ISD). Prato
• O Riordan, N. Lohan, G. Mind the gaps: increasing the impact of IS research on ISD
performance improvement. Forthcoming at the Australian Conference on Information
Systems (ACIS)
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14. Dr Niamh O Riordan PhD MBS HDip BA
Lecturer in Information Systems and Organisation
Q235 UCD School of Business | University College Dublin | Belfield | Dublin 4 | Ireland
t: +353 (0) 1 716 4723
e: niamh.oriordan@ucd.ie
w: www.niamhoriordan.com
l: ie.linkedin.com/in/niamhoriordan/
Management Information Systems  Córais Faisnéise Bainistíochta