Professor Ioana Lupu will teach an international seminar within the Doctoral Program on Business Management.

- Thursday, November 30th, 2023, 10h00. Room 1P06
 “Entrainment: How control practices produce time famine in professional service firms”.

Professor Lupu, ESSEC Business School (France), focuses her research on Human Resources and Organizational Behaviour and has published her research in academic journals such as Human Relations or Organization Studies

The seminar will be coordinated and presented by professor Joaquín Alegre (joaquin.alegre@uv.es)

Abstract
Previous literature has suggested that management controls, such as billable hours, budgets or socialization used by professional service firms (PSFs) have temporal effects, such as work intensification, long working hours and time famine. However, we still do not have an in-depth understanding of how different types of controls combine to produce such temporal effects in professional settings.
This paper draws on 159 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 81 professionals in two professional firms in London to explore how combinations of controls contribute to the (re)production of time famine (the feeling of having too much to do and not enough time to do it).
Drawing on the conceptualization of management control as temporal structuring, professor’s Lupu research shows how organizational controls entrain individuals with the fast-paced organizational rhythm. Periods of synchronization alternate with periods of desynchronization produced by individuals’ refusal or
incapacity to entrain with organizational rhythm. However, her findings show desynchronization to be short-lived as controls push towards resynchronization thus promoting continuous entrainment with intense organizational rhythms. This entrainment cycle explains the persistence of time famine in professional settings.
Studying time famine as a result of controls allows us to enhance our understanding of temporality and work in professional firms, embodiment and control.