The Economic Evaluation of Time: Organizational Causes and Individual Consequences

Abstract

People acquire ways of thinking about time partly in and from work organizations, where the control and measurement of time use is a prominent feature of modern management — an inevitable consequence of employees selling their time for money. In this paper, we theorize about the role organizational practices play in promoting an economic evaluation of time and time use — where time is thought of primarily in monetary terms and viewed as a scarce resource that should be used as efficiently as possible. While people usually make decisions about time and money differently, we argue that management practices that make the connection between time and money salient can heighten the economic evaluation of time. We consider both the organizational causes of economic evaluation as well as its personal and societal consequences.