Managing projects as a mode of temporal ordering. Performative organising of time and temporality in projects

Abstract

Purpose Project studies analyse either managing practices or the temporal nature of project management, which leaves open a research gap: the temporality of managing practice. The paper demonstrates that performativity theory with a temporal perspective helps us to understand how managing a project organises limited temporal resources by aligning activities, deadlines or milestones to reach a goal in a given time.Design/methodology/approach The article utilises empirical data and grounded theory methodology. Ten interviews with project managers from two companies support empirically guided theory building and conceptual reasoning.Findings The article extends John Law's “modes of ordering” to a project-specific mode of temporal ordering. This mode of temporal ordering describes the underlying rationale of project managers who assign, order and materialise time to generate the temporal structure of the project.Research limitations/implications The conceptual nature of the paper and its limited empirical data restrict the generalisation of the findings. The article's goal is to initiate further research and to offer a set of tools for such research.Originality/value The contribution links managing practice and temporality in a performativity approach. This link focusses the actual actions of the managers and contextualises them in the temporal flow of the project. Managing projects as a mode of temporal ordering describes how project managers enact temporal structures and how they themselves and their activities are temporally embedded.