CERGAS Seminar "Temporal politics and ambiguity in collaborations and projects"

This presentation examines temporal politics and ambiguity in collaborations and projects involving actors and organisations with divergent temporal orientations. Drawing on published work (McGivern et al., 2018, Croft et al., 2022, Langley and McGivern, 2025) and a paper currently in development, it explores their role in a UK government-funded collaboration aimed at translating scientific genetics research into healthcare practice.
We explain how the collaboration was initially underpinned by ambiguity about its purpose and timeline, which became problematic as progress stalled. In response, the government imposed a fixed temporal structure to achieve clear translational goals within the remaining period. Rather than resolving tensions within the collaboration, however, this structure brought collaborators' divergent temporal orientations and future goals into sharper relief, undermining their engagement. We develop theory explaining how the changing related nature of temporal and goal ambiguity, and the temporal work it generates, shapes complex projects and collaborations involving diverse actors pursuing distinct aims across different time horizons.
References:
CROFT, C., MCGIVERN, G., CURRIE, G., LOCKETT, A. & SPYRIDONIDIS, D. 2022. Unified Divergence and the Development of Collective Leadership. Journal of Management Studies, 59, 460–488.
LANGLEY, A. & MCGIVERN, G. 2025. Temporal Structuring and Project Behavior. In: LAVAGNON, I. & PINTO, J. (eds.) Cambridge Handbook of Project Behavior. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
MCGIVERN, G., DOPSON, S., FERLIE, E., FISCHER, M., FITZGERALD, L., LEDGER, J. & BENNETT, C. 2018. The Silent Politics of Temporal Work: A Case Study of a Management Consultancy Project to Redesign Public Health Care. Organization Studies, 39, 1007–1030.

Speaker:

Gerry McGivern is Professor of Public Services Management & Organisation at King’s Business School, King’s College London (UK). His research examines how regulation, management and organisational structures shape professional knowledge, practice, identity, and leadership, particularly within healthcare systems in the UK and East Africa. His research findings have been published in journals including the Journal of Management Studies, Leadership Quarterly, Organization Studies, the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Public Administration, Human Relations and Social Science and Medicine, and he is co-author of Making Wicked Problems Governable: The Continuing Case of Managed Networks in Health Care (Oxford University Press, 2013/2025). Gerry is on the Editorial Boards of Organization Studies, Human Relations and the Journal of Professions and Organization, and is currently Chair of the Society for Studies in Organizing Healthcare, which hosts the bi-annual and Organizational Behaviour in Health Care conference (which is being held in Oxford in April). 

Link zoom:

https://unibocconi-it.zoom.us/j/95488838859?pwd=FZMfbz0ExrNvhWjuWL4J3ab3Hd4a5Q.1

Meeting ID:

954 8883 8859

Passcode:

021930

Lunch at the end of the meeting: for those willing to participate in person, click here before the 18th of March.