Material Temporality: How materiality 'does' time in food organizing. Issue 2 (February 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hernes, Tor; Feddersen, Jonathan; Schultz, Majken
• Other Names: Moser Christine guest-editor.; Reinecke Juliane guest-editor.; den Hond Frank guest-editor.; Svejenova Silviya guest-editor.; Croidieu Grégoire guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Organization studies. Volume 42:Issue 2(2021)
• Page Start: 351
• Page End: 371
• Publication Date: 2021-02
• Subjects: Material temporality -- epochal temporality -- processual temporality -- food organizing -- materiality -- innovation; Organizational sociology -- Periodicals; Organizational behavior -- Periodicals; Organization -- Periodicals; 302.35
• DOI: 10.1177/0170840620909974
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0170-8406

Abstract

The organic and hence perishable nature of food makes it particularly useful for understanding how the temporal dimension of materiality influences organizing and innovation. We present, as our main theoretical contribution, the concept of 'material temporality' to account for the transformation of materials in time and their imagined states at different moments across time, which we label processual and epochal temporality, respectively. Our empirical study shows how two organizations in the beer and dairy industries searched for novel solutions in their past and future. We show how the organizations' potential for more consequential innovation was greater when they engaged distant past or future epochal temporalities. However, distant epochal temporality may also become uncertain and contested through the lens of ongoing processual temporality. We discuss the implications of material temporality for industries other than food and for organizing in relation to the natural environment.