In The Politics and Science of Prevision: Governing and Probing the Future, Wenger, Jasper, and Cavelty (2020) state that modern “shifts in global economics and politics are in line with asynchronous shifts in the temporal thinking in Western and in Chinese politics.” The quote specifically references Chinese temporal orientation as distinct to the West, yet differences in perceptions of temporality exist across the world, as time plays a factor in worldview, outlook, decision-making processes, and in other cultural aspects. Where differences exist, they may create tensions between actors and impact relationships. These impacts may affect strategic interactions, and thus require deeper understanding.
Social science, and in particular, anthropologists and political scientists, have engaged in a growing body of literature related to time orientation and temporality since the 1970s. The literature contains multiple frameworks related to time orientation. Time has been categorized as cyclical, linear, or spiral; outer and inner; and monochronic or polychronic, among other approaches. Although the topic remains debated, many researchers view cultural understandings of time as social constructs continuously reinforced through sociocultural practices. They are not static, but rather dynamic and evolving processes reflecting how cultures change over time responding to intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Within this discussion, time orientation has progressed from a singular cultural dimension to being considered a culturally-shaped cognitive process, sometimes influenced through historical memory. Less commonly, scholars consider time orientation from an affective lens to elucidate how it affects behavior. Perceptions of time and timing, and how they inform or are informed by cognition and affect, influence all aspects of life in a society, to include planning, decision making, and resulting actions. Thus, there is particular interest in how temporality and worldview affect strategic decision making and relationships.
Management literature has a growing body of research that incorporates time-related concepts, particularly for strategy and strategic processes, and continues to note temporality as a major research gap. This literature focuses on the role of temporality in decision-making processes and planning. Because strategy involves short- and long-term decision making and planning, the connection between temporality and strategy, which could include multiple facets of the strategic, such as thinking, planning, pause, surprise, etc., are understudied conjointly, there is a need to fill gaps in current knowledge. Specifically, there is a need to further interrogate the relationship between temporality and strategy to determine how they impact sociopolitical issues and relationships globally, and in which circumstances they create challenges and opportunities.
Successful proposals will focus on developing novel basic research on temporal orientation and strategy (i.e. where strategy relates to one or more of the following areas: strategic decision making, strategic thinking, strategic adaptation, strategic planning, strategic culture, strategic surprise, to include how competing relationships may interact, synchronously or asynchronously, to influence geopolitics or sociopolitical issues; and/or advance an understanding of how and when temporal orientation and differences among them affect or should inform strategic thinking, strategic action, and strategic pause). Proposals should explicitly identify and define the aspect(s) of strategy the research will interrogate. Also of interest is how multiple aspects of the strategic might combine in “strategic competition.” This topic does not prescribe specific use cases but recommends that the team include cultural expertise for those proposed. Projects that include experimental approaches and/or consider how research results may lead to predictive outcomes are encouraged.