The role of subjective time in organizations: A temporal perspective on temporary workers' commitment to the organization

Time is often considered in terms of its function in structuring everyday events and experiences in a chronological order. However, the subjective experience of time (i.e., the experience of a temporal interval as either 'short' or 'long') does not always follow this more objective 'clock time'. For some, the time until a deadline or end of a contract might be experienced as an eternity, while for others a similar interval might be experienced as relatively short. In the current contribution, I provide an overview of research on subjective time experience and relate these insights to a specific domain of inquiry: the motivation and commitment of employees who have contracts of limited duration, such as temporary workers or those close to their pension. Research suggests that shorter objective distance in time away from the end of a contract negatively influences the employee's motivation and commitment. However, subjective distance may yield similar results. This difference is relevant given the ambiguity in mental representations of subjective durations which allows people to systematically alter such perceptions, thus providing a way in which motivation and commitment may be maintained.