Practices of Periodization: Toward a Critical Perspective on Temporal Division in Organizations

Periodization, or the division of perceived time, pervades organizational life. While scholars have explored many ways in which actors relate to the past, present, and future for various purposes, periodization as an expression of temporality is often taken for granted. With a fundamental capacity to inform cognition and action, periodization carries high stakes for involved actors and groups, which necessitates addressing this lacuna. Specifically, we investigate the intersubjective instances of periodization that foreground human agency, which lends itself to developing a critical perspective on periodization with emphasis on its relation to power and agency and theorizing its often-covert presence and use in organizational life. Periodization, we contend, centralizes some organizational actors or events while marginalizing others. This insight is amenable to two theoretical contributions. First, we offer a new lens for understanding, theorizing, and leveraging the power of temporality and the temporality of power. Second, we set the stage for examining periodization as an actionable yet often overlooked temporal tool at the disposition of organizational actors. By systematically unearthing and challenging the underlying assumptions of periodization, we invite scholars and practitioners to scrutinize and challenge why and how organizational actors can temporally interpret, frame, and contest the social reality.