Essai: Doing Time in Organization Theory

Abstract

In this essay I examine my proclivity to theorize time in a cyclical way. Using artist David Hockney's reflections on representing time in art through movement, I suggest that, like Hockney's paintings, my dynamic theories of organizational culture, identity and collective creativity were produced with an awareness of my movement through time. Hockney not only helps me to explain the necessity of movement to understand organizing more dynamically, he also suggests that taking a dynamic approach to theorizing introduces intimacy. On this basis, the essay concludes with the speculation that my way of theorizing moves beyond the claims of subjectivity to interiorization a willingness to embed oneself in the processes of organizing in order to describe their dynamics from the viewpoint of participation.