Time, Times, and Timing: Taking Temporality Seriously in Information Systems Research

In this panel, we argue for the importance of taking time seriously in IS research. In particular, we suggest that much of IS research either ignores time altogether (e.g., cross-sectional studies), or treats it primarily as an abstract, linear, and quantitative variable (e.g., clock time). Both treatments of time miss important insights about temporal phenomena, for example: the notion of time as contextual, subjective, and qualitative; the idea that people experience and enact multiple different times in their daily routines; the recognition that heterogeneous temporalities are inscribed into technical artifacts; and the various possibilities that people have to shape time through their ongoing action. These and other rich notions of time have the potential to offer valuable insights for our understanding of IS phenomena