PB436E      Half Unit
The Science of Time at Work

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

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Time is arguably the fabric of our lives, but its value often goes unnoticed. Every day we make decisions (or decisions are made for us) about how and with whom to spend our finite temporal resources. But what is time? How should we think about the value of an hour, or a decade? What does it mean to optimally allocate our time? Does time shape motivation, productivity, and well-being? What can leaders do to enhance team collaboration, address gendered time inequality, and protect desired work-life boundaries? How does AI change the way we think and use time? And if time is our most precious resource, why is time theft not a crime?

This course seeks to address such questions by drawing primarily from the management literature and featuring real-life examples across industries and cultures. Students taking this course will gain a multidisciplinary perspective on understanding and managing time at work and in life; will learn to think critically about their own experiences and uses of time, and how this shapes their expectations and behaviours in their personal life, at work, and in society; they will be able to recognize the barriers that prevent them from pursuing activities that are beneficial for them and their community; will gain knowledge about how innovations and work has changed the way we think about time; and will learn how to integrate time across all aspects of their lives so they can enact positive change for themselves and their community.

Given that how we spend our time is how we live our life, this course is set up to be highly interactive and experiential. Students taking this course will not only learn about the theoretical insights on time but will also get to apply the science on time by engaging in various evidence-based exercises. Note that two of these exercises will need to be completed before the course starts to maximize learning. All exercises are debriefed during the course.  

Course objectives:

• To discover time research and why it matters for productivity and well-being.
• To get insights into one’s own perceptions and (mis)uses of time.
• To explore new team dynamins and leadership that centre around time.
• To gain a better understanding of the role of work and motivation in our lives.
• To identify solutions that turn innovations from threats to opportunities.

8 hours of seminars and 15 hours of lectures in the Winter Term.

1. Individual 250-word pitch for your summative op-ed.  For your summative, you will write an op-ed essay on an academic article (you will get to choose one of three articles that will be provided to you). To prepare you for the summative, part of your formative work will be to write a pitch on the article you choose to write an op-ed on. In your pitch, you should describe which article you plan to focus on, why you chose that article, and how you plan to structure your op-ed.
2. Group project: From Monday to Thursday, you will work as a group to analyse and seek to resolve, or at least mitigate, a time-related challenge (e.g., procrastination, overcommitment, overload, etc.). You will further propose one area of research that is missing in the academic literature on the chosen time-related challenge. Each day you can apply what we learn in class, from what drives this challenge to how it could be tempered. On Friday, you will give a short, in-class presentation.

• Blagoev, B., & Schreyögg, G. (2019). Why do extreme work hours persist? Temporal uncoupling as a new way of seeing. Academy of Management Journal, 62(6), 1818-1847.
• Csillag, B., Campbell, E. M., & Zhou, L. (2025). Is time the great equalizer? How interpersonal time request processes are shaped by and reproduce disparities. Academy of Management Review.
• Schinoff, B. S., Pillemer, J., Rogers, K. M., & Petriglieri, J. L. (2025). Blurring Boundaries in Coworker Relationships: How a Nonwork Setting Becomes a Relational Holding Environment. Organization Science.
• Feldman, E., Reid, E. M., & Mazmanian, M. (2020). Signs of our time: Time-use as dedication, performance, identity, and power in contemporary workplaces. Academy of Management Annals, 14(2), 598-626.
• Giurge, L. M., Whillans, A. V., & West, C. (2020). Why time poverty matters for individuals, organisations and nations. Nature Human Behaviour, 4(10), 993-1003.
• Berg, J. M. (2022). One-hit wonders versus hit makers: Sustaining success in creative industries. Administrative Science Quarterly, 67(3), 630-673.
• Doyle, S. P., Pettit, N. C., Kim, S., To, C., & Lount Jr, R. B. (2022). Surging underdogs and slumping favorites: How recent streaks and future expectations drive competitive transgressions. Academy of Management Journal, 65(5), 1507-1540
• Shipp, A. J. (2021). My fixation on time management almost broke me. Harvard Business Review.
• Templeton, E. M., Chang, L. J., Reynolds, E. A., LeBeaumont, M. D. C., & Wheatley, T. (2022). Fast response times signal social connection in conversation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(4).
• Bednarski, M. (2025). How is your team spending the time saved by GenAI? Harvard Business Review.

Problem sets (100%)