Temporal Approaches in OB

Time in W/O Psychology: Some initial considerations

Time has been an issue widely considered in W/O-P.

The substance of OB exists in and through time (constructs of interest).

Work experience is full of temporal footprints (e.g. performance episodes, interruptions in normal flow, etc.).

W/O-P also consider several time-related constructs (e.g. time pressure, deadlines, etc.).

Being true that W/O P is devoted to the study of processes.....

it is also true that very often researchers treat many of these processes in an atemporal manner.

This problem-method misfit has consequences, i.e. in terms of validity of the accumulated knowledge.

How has time in W/O P been considered ?

Time as a variable (e.g. time pressure)

Time as a neglected topic (e.g. the problem-method misfit)

Time as a rejected issue (e.g. VIE theory)

Time scales (e.g. multilevel theory)

Time as a needed issue to do better theories and research

1.- Time as a Variable: The most frequent in the literature

Time-related constructs: time pressure, time strain, time demands, time lag, time management, timing, time orientation, etc.

Socio-demographic issues: part-time and full-time workers.

Time as a metric: T1-T2-Tn, lags, etc.

2.- Time as a neglected topic

Neglected in:

Theory building (when things happen)

Measurement issues (cross-sectional designs have been preponderant)

Data analysis (less guides to use longitudinal data)

3.- Time as a rejected issue: the striking example of the VIE theory

Vroom (1964) and other authors using VIE theory have proposed that work motivation is basically ahistorical in form (p. 17).

In spite of using the expectancies construct, the focus is in the lewinian current field forces of behaviour.

4.- Time scales

Time scale are the temporal intervals needed to build and test theories (Zaheer et al., 1999).

Level 1: Individual

Level 2: Group

Level 3: Organization

Level 3: Organization

e.g. affect at work

e.g. team cohesion

e.g. culture

Increments in stability

Multilevel designs: within/between levels

Level 1: Individual

Level 2: Group

Level 3: Organization

Level 3: Organization

e.g. affect at work

e.g. team cohesion

e.g. culture

Level 0: occasions, registers, times

However, time is more that a new level in a multilevel study.

With temporal information we introduce new information that are temporally ordered.

Then, it has not sense to aggregate this information to obtain the measure in the upper-level.

Current examples of this W/B levels

Experience sampling methods

Diary methods

Ecological momentary assessment

Intensive longitudinal methods

Longitudinal big data

5.- Time as a needed issue to do better

A boundary condition in theory building (Whetten, 1989)

Influences the way constructs are defined (e.g. work engagement-state work engagement)

Influences how the constructs can be related (e.g. emotions-mood relation)

Informs about methods needed

Summing up, it is the new frontier (Kowzloski, 2009)

Where Is Research about Time in W&O Psychology Heading?

Molenaar's call of taking care about ergodicity

Van de Ven & Poole's approach

Roe's radical temporalism

Molenaar's call: the matrix of Cattell (1952)

Molenaar's call

Psychological processes like cognitive information processing, perception, emotion, and motor behaviour occur in real time at the level of individual persons (Molenaar & Campbell, 2009, p. 116).

However, the mainstream in Psychology has focused in the study of inter-individual differences, forgetting intra-individual variations with just are time-dependent.

Ergodic theorem: When to apply the knowledge between levels

Two conditions to meet:

Homogeneity: each subject of the sample follows the same statistical model.

Stationarity: the construct of interest shows constant statistics characteristics over time.

Having saying this, ergodicity is very difficult to hold in psychological research.

Psychology is a idiographic science (Molenaar)

How we can proceed in the research following Molenaar's call

Studying first if the process of interest is ergodic.

Developing an intra-individual level research.

Looking for possible clusters of individuals with the same intra-individual variability.

Studying these clusters at between-level.

Van de Ven & Poole's approach: two ontologies in OT about change

Organizations are real phenomena. Change is the movement from one state to other.

Organizations do not exist. The real is the ongoing activity of organizing, the permanent change; the organizations are only a reification of this ongoing activity.

Time plays a very different role in these ontologies.

The role of time: variance vs processes approaches

Variance approach: the focus is on variables that represent the important aspects of the subjects under study.

Process approach: the focus is on the temporal connections among events, different time scales in the same process, and the dynamic nature of the process.

Applying to organizational change

Variance approach: explanation of the appearance of change, its magnitude, its consequences (change as a variable).

Process approach: interest in critical events, turning points, formative patterns in order to describe how change happens (interest in change itself).

Roe's radical temporalism

Barriers to include time in the research:Lack of theoretical guides (theories rarely specify when things happen)

Less knowledge of method guides (how to conduct a longitudinal research and analyze data)

Difficulty to obtain continued access to collect data

Publication pressure at short-term

But, the most important barrier is a mental one.

Our way of thinking: no more variables, please!

Behind the concept of variable we can find two sources of variability: between-person and within-persons. Usually, the research does not distinguish between them.

Additionally, it represents the idea that an attribute is always present in certain degree, so static approaches (i.e. cross-sectional) would be useful for catching it.

Differential vs Temporalism approaches

Differential: focuses in the individual differences, emphasizing the study of variance, and the variance explained

Temporalism: focuses in the dynamic of the construct, assuming that it is permanently changing over time

Both approaches are orthogonal: the knowledge from one is not applicable to the other !!

To finish: possible trends for the future of time in W/O P 1/2

Adopting a process ontology: study changes, time-scales involved, temporal connections among events

Adopting radical temporalism: stop using variables !! Study, phenomena (events that happen during certain time), their stability or change, their dynamic features, etc. (e.g. Solinger et al, 2013)

Considering non-ergodicity of change patterns: focus on intra-person processes, and after study cluster of intra-individual patterns (e.g. Li & Roe, 2012)

To finish: possible trends for the future of time in W/O P 2/2

Considering non-linearity of change patterns (e.g. Ramos-Villagrasa et al, 2012)

Considering endogenous change; adopting a developmental perspective (e.g. Levine & Moreland, 1994)

Applying complexity science to study complex (i.e. chaotic, fractal, catastrophic, etc.) phenomena in OP (e.g. Ceja & Navarro, 2011, 2012)

References

Navarro, J., Roe, R. A., & Artiles, M. I. (2015). Time in Work/Organizational Psychology: From neglect to trigger a possible ontological revolution. Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 31, 135-145.

Prof. J. Navarro, Dep. Psicologa Social, 2015