When acceleration shapes work time

Abstract

In recent years, the work of the German social theorist Hartmut Rosa (1965-) has been highlighted as a key candidate for an overall diagnosis of modern society. Through the development of concepts such as social acceleration, Rosa has set the agenda for popular discussions concerning the late modern individual’s relationship to time as a scarce resource. However, despite the popularity of this societal diagnosis and its connection to modern working life, Rosa’s theory has not been translated to any significant extent into more concrete studies of time in contemporary organization studies. In this paper, we therefore identify and discuss how Hartmut Rosa’s theoretical framework can inform concrete analyses of time pressure, synchronization, and the influence of digital technologies in contemporary organizations. This largely theoretical discussion is supported by empirical examples from two different qualitative studies of the private pharmaceutical industry and the public health care system, where time has been reshaped and accelerated in different ways. More specifically, we highlight how Rosa’s concepts can help us study (a) the synchronization of work tasks, (b) the impact of digital technologies on employees’ time budgets, and (c) forms of involuntary and voluntary deceleration in organizations.