Time & Society

Time is of the essence in modern organizations; yet most of the work of managers, workers, service providers and a wide range of professionals is conducted routinely through the time-intensive activity of everyday, informal talk. This article examines the reflexive and recursive relation of time and talk in the constitution of organizations. It suggests that organizational work is paced and positioned through a variety of `temporal frames'; these, in turn, are achieved in and through the quick exchanges and extended meetings that make up the business of talk. They provide ways of filtering past practice into present agendas that are both pragmatic and adaptive. Organizations are made to `tick' through talk.

This article reports on an `extraordinary' time perspective, one that partitions the future into pre- and post-death time frames. Based on data from 1235 individuals, the `transcendental-future' extends from the point of imagined death of the physical body to infinity, yet may influence present behavior. Related to numerous psychological variables, the transcendental-future is a component of, but not synonymous with, many religious beliefs. From the perspective of the transcendental-future, behaviors often seen as irrational, such as suicide, extreme heroism, and excessive tithing, are transformed into rational behaviors expected to lead to fulfillment of transcendental-future goals.

The aims of this research note are to identify the traditional values behind the notion of time in Sicily; to assess Sicilians' attitudes to the past, the present and the future; to record the pace of life of Sicilians and to compare it with that of other cultures. In order to achieve these goals, various research methods were used: analyses of proverbs, interviews, tests and observations. This paper presents the results obtained from the study.

This paper introduces the Tutzing `Time Ecology' Project, started in 1991. It demonstrates the relevance of time theory to environmental practice at the everyday and political level. It reports on conferences and publications to date.

This paper weaves together several conceptual threads between time, food production and consumption habits. In a context of fast food and ready-to-eat meals, it advances an environmental argument for rediscovering the joys and culinary pleasures of local foods and regional specialities, as well as the need for finding time once again for unhurried social eating.

The ways in which issues of differential times and time-scales make themselves felt in environmental politics are explored. Official and industrial `control' of time-scales within environmental regulatory processes is seen to be an important determinant of the forms such politics take in countries like the UK. It is argued that the opening up of `time' debates carries far-reaching and positive implications for `sustainability' aspirations in the industrial world.