The business is all about busyness: hybrid workers’ temporal autonomy and the temporal structure of acceleration

Abstract

Purpose – The paper reports a study of employee experiences of temporal acceleration of hybrid work. Grounded in the perspective of temporal structure, acceleration is examined as a patterned organization of time that emphasizes the speeding up of tasks and interactions, both shaping and being shaped by workers’ temporal autonomy. Design/methodology/approach – Utilizing a three-phased interview–diary–interview method (IDIM), qualitative data were generated with 20 hybrid workers. Initiated by introductory interviews, the data were temporally embedded in participants’ daily experiences (diaries) and retrospective self-reflections (interviews), which together produced a rich narrative dataset. An iterative analysis is applied, and the three resulting themes are reported through composite narratives that present data from a variety of sources. Findings – The composite narratives illustrate that acceleration as a temporal structure is experienced in various ways in hybrid work, each carrying different implications for hybrid workers’ sense of temporal autonomy. While some hybrid workers respond passively to acceleration, others actively contribute to it or attempt to challenge it. The findings depict how the experience of busyness is inherent to contemporary hybrid work, yet its consequences are diverse as the accelerating pace is embraced and resisted. Originality/value – The study theorizes and empirically explores acceleration as a temporal structure within hybrid work. It also examines organizational temporality from a methodologically novel perspective, combining IDIM and composite narratives. This approach captures the dynamicity of organizational temporality by generating rich data and integrating the diverse voices of multiple participants.