It's About Time! How Conceptualisations of Time Affect Intellectual Capital and Knowledge Work

Words associated with the influence of time in organisational life pepper daily conversations; indeed time is one of the most frequently used nouns in English even without variants like timing, timeliness, timescale, time line, just-in-time, rhythm, durability, synchronous. Time is a finite resource under constant pressure in our 24/7 globally connected world, yet the Intellectual Capital (IC) and Knowledge Management (KM) literature offers more insights into improving the management of know-what, know-why and know-how; rarely do we find work explicitly exploring the effect of tacit assumptions about time or examining the diverse but significant organisational implications of paying attention to that element of knowing associated with when knowledge has value and when what we know needs re-evaluating and redeveloping. This conceptual paper brings together time related dimensions from bodies of literature implicated in managing knowledge and IC. It offers a theoretical overview of how perspectives on time affect a range of organisational knowledge-based activities from individual thinking and learning to group behaviour, collective orientation to risk, decision making, collaboration and ultimately ICl management. Reflection on alternative perceptions of time allow us to consider questions of they affect memory, communications, knowledge sharing relationships, group dynamics inter-group coordination, culture and many of the variables that shape the effective management of knowledge and careful governance of IC. This paper adopts Weick's (2009) view that organisations are not simply enduring reifications of past history and strategic knowledge, but dynamic and temporarily stable clusters of events, shaped in the moment by the ongoing sensemaking activities of those involved. It argues that paying attention to temporal dynamics gives both managers and academics greater awareness of how to prioritise value creating knowledge activities in volatile situations. It challenges the simplistic industrial age metaphor of time as money, and explores a richer metaphor conceptualising time as energy which vitalises sense-making and the dynamism of the knowledge-based enterprise.