Taking time seriously: Changing practices and perspectives in Work/Organizational Psychology

Abstract

Although dedicated to the study of processes in people and organizations, W&O Psychology has shown little sensitivity to the fact that processes happen in time and evolve over time. This paper describes how the field has become more aware of time, after an initial neglect of time, and is now engaged in developing theories and empirically investigating when things happen and how they change. We discuss proposals from Molenaar, Van de Ven, Roe, and colleagues to make our conceptual apparatus better suited to the study of temporal dynamics and to make research methods more sensitive to temporal issues, changing their focus on individual differences to within-person variations. We finish with a discussion of how taking time seriously may lead W&O Psychology to explore new frontiers and to enter new paths in the future which can lead to a better recognition of complexities in organizational behavior.