Agency time: A study of time reckoning in the organization of work in the new economy

This dissertation seeks to understand how organizational constructions of time relate to control over the labor process in the postindustrial context. I focus on the division between working time and private time for workers in a case study industry of the so-called "new economy": interactive agencies. I explore "time reckoning" in interactive agencies, or the ways in which actors make time collectively intelligible. Through the lens of time, I explore how labor is controlled in this kind of organization. I find that these agencies display what I call "double commodification" of labor power, in that workers' labor power is sold once to the agency and once again to their clients. This double commodification process relies on the use of time sheets to record workers' hours. This practice provides insight into how postindustrial capitalism is negotiating one of its immanent problems: how to render workers' labor as a commodity when it cannot be separated from workers themselves (Polanyi, 2001). Time sheets reveal workers' labor power simply as units of time, thereby revealing it as what Polanyi would call the "fictitious commodity" of labor itself (Polanyi, 2001).;The empirical portion of this dissertation finds the interactive agency timescape is disjointed and uneven, yet the time-reckoning system of time sheets remains remarkably rigid. Through time sheets, workers internalize a sense of time thrift that would not otherwise be possible without detailed records of time use. In this way, time sheets create a time-based governable subject. In evaluating the effects of this particular kind of time reckoning, I find that the time-based governable subject aspires to working time norms that are frequently unachievable without working time invading private time. Workers frequently sacrifice time with their families for home-based work. Mobile technology greatly increases the permeability of the division between home and work.;I return to theory by suggesting that postindustrial capitalism can be understood by adapting Bourdieu's (1984) notion of habitus to incorporate temporality. A so-called "time habitus," or an embodied, temporal expression of relative class position, can be manipulated for purposes of workplace domination. "Appropriate" expressions of time use would be particularly interesting in other industries with this "double commodification" process, such as law firms, wherein gendered experiences drive out women, and particularly women with children. I finally argue that interactive agencies should confront the issue of time reckoning and its impact on the home/work divide. I recommend that billing by the hour be rejected in favor of fee-for-service retainers that have no time aspect associated with them. I further argue that clear policies about home-based work be articulated and followed so that workers can successfully negotiate their own home/work divide.;Interactive agencies, which build marketing-focused Web sites and online advertising campaigns, usually bill clients for hours of work. Workers typically are paid a salary, not an hourly wage. The time-reckoning system in such agencies involves the use of detailed time sheets, which are used to calculate "billable hours." The theoretical portion of this dissertation finds that political economy approaches to time can be improved by employing a "timescape" (Adam, 1998) approach, with an emphasis on the symbolic and phenomenological aspects of time. In a review of the working time literature, it is argued that working time research has been hampered by this lack of attention to the symbolic and phenomenological aspects of time but that the examination of power---a traditional strength of political economy approaches---must also be integrated into empirical study of working time.