'Pushing the Past Backwards in Front of Oneself': A Socio-Analytic Perspective on the Relatedness of Past, Present, and Future in Contemporary Organizations

The thinking about the relatedness of past, present, and future immanent in Western society is to a major extent tainted by a notion of time propagated by the contemporary state of post-industrial economy and investor-capitalism. Based on a socio-analytic perspective, the main emphasis of this paper will be on the knowing and not-knowing about time that has been lost in contemporary organizations. The linearity of time, the deification of progress, the reification of time as commodity, the denial of the relevance of the past and the no(w)ness of time are predominant aspects of time in organizations. These unilaterally aim to subjugate time to what is known and knowable. Contemporary organizations and enterprises often appear so preoccupied with overcoming the present, and managing and manipulating the future, that they totally lose sight of any shadow. The intent of this paper is to grasp some of the hidden meaning and meaninglessness, the gains and losses resulting from the predominant use of time in organizations, and the shadows that the past, present, and future cast before.