Identity, Times and Work

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyse the construction of time as perceived by a group of IT workers. It is argued that two stories about working time have been socially constructed during the 19th and 20th centuries, not as an epochal phenomenon but as a multi-times phenomenon: a clock time story and a task-time story. A quantitative method is used in analysing the IT workers, which breaks with the traditional conception within research that a social constructivist approach requires qualitative data and methods. The analysis reveals that these IT workers do not represent an homogenous group. Rather, four distinct groups are identifiable: Blurred Timers, Invaded Clock Timers, Clock Timers, and Task Timers – with Blurred Timers being the largest group and Task Timers the smallest. Employment status and union membership have a direct and significant impact on these time identities whereas gender, age, educational level, and challenge of the work do not have any direct or significant correlation with these time identities. Finally, the time identities are put into perspective and compared to recent research on gender and industrial relations.