Time for change: Corporate conventions, space–time and uneven development

Abstract

The corporation remains a critical agent in the production of geographically uneven development. Furthermore, time is critical to the practices and deliberations taking place within corporations, yet it has been underappreciated within prominent economic geographical analyses. This article argues for the examination of the ‘black box’ of the corporation, as a site producing uneven development, and through which the temporalities of decision-making and deliberation are critical. Combined with the temporal insights of Harvey’s ‘social’ and ‘experiential’ space–times, conventions theory is utilised to elucidate the importance of the corporate deliberations and practices that come to produce uneven development. A conventions approach importantly provides a framework in which to examine the role of both conventionalised behaviours and how conventions are used in heterogeneous experiential space–time deliberations and decision-making and how this is interwoven with social spaces–times. Such an approach is critical in conceptualising the corporation as a deliberative social and experiential space–time series of sites and through which it is reified as a temporary instantiation.