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PurposeTo contribute the process perspective on strategy the systems theoretical concept of time binding and show how time, when unfolded and linked, is compressed or stretched, thereby demonstrating the motion of temporal spaces within organizations.Design/methodology/approachCase approach and with emphasis on communicative events.FindingsThe finding of three different time bindings in strategy work showing not only how time is unfolded and multiplied but also how these bindings were unexpectedly found to be experienced simultaneously, thus turning a seemingly linear strategy based on goal achievement into a complex of interrelated motions driven by performativity, potentiality and reiteration.Research limitations/implicationsThe research implications are significant to the process perspective on strategy as time should not only be understood and investigated as different unfoldings and time-links within organizations, but also on the motion of these temporal spaces, which is to say, how they move the organization ahead.Practical implicationsFrom a practical perspective, when taking both the existing and future research on strategy into account, one notices that most management literature and the mainstream courses held at business schools tend to draw on one-dimensional casualities and chronological timelines in order to combine accurate forecasts with predicted end-results. Such attempts reflect one unfolding, one binding, one temporal space and one way of moving, but if managers want to improve knowledge on deliberate change, temporal awareness should be part of their strategic change repertoire alongside the ability to match different motions to the skills and capacity of an organization.Social implicationsThe concept of time binding is a way to extend the ways by which we seek to comprehend the temporal nature of social relations and structures within organizations and in particular those practices that are considered strategic. In particular, it offers ways of understanding how strategy is a temporal exercise that provides organizations with different temporal spaces within single events and hence different motions – all of which simultaneously move the organization differently ahead in time.Originality/valueBy providing the system theoretical concept of time binding it brings new and original value into the process and practice field of strategy research. The empirical findings demonstrate how unusual and not yet seen unfoldings and bindings between before and after appears and how such bindings take the form of temporal spaces that simultaneously and differently moves the organizations ahead in time.

Many Europeans today ask why the European Community chose the bold strategy of pursuing an Economic and Monetary Union at a time when a number of political and economic issues had not yet been resolved. Many economists like to think that the economic case for EMU was weak and that the decision was taken strictly on political grounds. As someone who had the privilege of being involved in the early preparatory efforts, I would argue that this is a misreading of history. I believe there was both a strong economic case for moving towards a single currency and a rare political opportunity for implementing it around 1990.

Au cours des années 1970 et 1980, les banques centrales ont vu leur objectif principal devenir la stabilité des prix et elles ont acquis de l'indépendance pour assumer ce mandat. Ces deux évolutions sont nées de l'expérience pratique combinée à de nouvelles théories macroéconomiques. La création de la BCE en offre un exemple frappant. Des mesures ont été prises pour supprimer explicitement les objectifs et/ou les outils susceptibles de détourner la BCE de son mandat principal. Après 2008, les banques centrales des États-Unis, du Royaume-Uni et du Japon ont entamé des politiques non conventionnelles - achats massifs de titres et annonces concernant les futures mesures de politique monétaire - dans le but de contourner leur incapacité à diminuer les taux directeurs à court terme. Elles se sont ainsi rapprochées des gouvernements sans remise en cause officielle de leur indépendance. La BCE n'a pas suivi cette voie, la diversité des membres de la zone euro a rendu plus difficile voire carrément impossible l'usage de politiques non conventionnelles. In the course of the 1970s and 80s, central banks became focused on price stability as a prime objective, and they were given more independence to assure such a mandate. Both developments grew out of practical experience combined with a new perspective on macroeconomic theory. The design of the ECB is a prime example; steps were taken to explicitly exclude objectives and/or instruments that might have distracted the ECB. After 2008 central banks in the US, the UK and Japan embarked on unconventional policies — massive purchases of securities and guidance to markets about future policy actions — in order to get around their inability to lower the short-term policy rate further; this brought them closer to governments, though as yet without any formal change in their independence. The ECB has not followed suit; the heterogeneity of the participants in the Euro area has made unconventional policies less useful or outright impossible.

Au cours des années 1970 et 1980, les banques centrales ont vu leur objectif principal devenir la stabilité des prix et elles ont acquis de l’indépendance pour assumer ce mandat. Ces deux évolutions sont nées de l’expérience pratique combinée à de nouvelles théories macroéconomiques. La création de la BCE en offre un exemple frappant. Des mesures ont été prises pour supprimer explicitement les objectifs et/ou les outils susceptibles de détourner la BCE de son mandat principal. Après 2008, les banques centrales des États-Unis, du Royaume-Uni et du Japon ont entamé des politiques non conventionnelles – achats massifs de titres et annonces concernant les futures mesures de politique monétaire – dans le but de contourner leur incapacité à diminuer les taux directeurs à court terme. Elles se sont ainsi rapprochées des gouvernements sans remise en cause officielle de leur indépendance. La BCE n’a pas suivi cette voie, la diversité des membres de la zone euro a rendu plus difficile voire carrément impossible l’usage de politiques non conventionnelles.Classification JEL : E58, F36. In the course of the 1970s and 80s, central banks became focused on price stability as a prime objective, and they were given more independence to assure such a mandate. Both developments grew out of practical experience combined with a new perspective on macroeconomic theory. The design of the ECB is a prime example; steps were taken to explicitly exclude objectives and/or instruments that might have distracted the ECB. After 2008 central banks in the US, the UK and Japan embarked on unconventional policies – massive purchases of securities and guidance to markets about future policy actions – in order to get around their inability to lower the short-term policy rate further; this brought them closer to governments, though as yet without any formal change in their independence. The ECB has not followed suit; the heterogeneity of the participants in the Euro area has made unconventional policies less useful or outright impossible.Classification JEL: E58, F36.

On peut se demander si, 50 ans après le Traité de Rome, la gouvernance économique dans la zone euro ne doit pas être réexaminée. Au fond, la structure actuelle semble appropriée même si elle engendre quelque insatisfaction chez quelques hommes politiques dans certains pays parce que le théâtre de la prise de décision incombe largement à la BCE. En outre, la structure est parfaitement capable d'adaptation ; les révisions du Pacte de stabilité et de croissance (PSC) donnent plus de discrétion aux ministres des Finances nationaux, notamment au sein de l'Eurogroupe, pour se pencher aussi sur la posture d'ensemble de la politique fiscale et sur le policy mix comme une base de leur dialogue avec la BCE. Il est également du ressort de l'Eurogroupe d'adopter des « orientations générales » concernant la politique de taux de change. Enfin, la tension pourrait être en partie réduite si les autorités politiques approuvaient l'objectif d'inflation de 2% de la BCE. One might ask if, 50 years after the Treaty of Rome, it might not be a good idea to re-examine economic governance in the Euro Zone. On the whole, the current structure seems appropriate, even if politicians in certain countries have expressed dissatisfaction that the ECB is responsible for making the lion's share of the decisions. Moreover, this structure is perfectly adaptable; the revisions to the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) give more discretion to the national finance ministries, particularly within the Eurogroup, and address the overall posture of tax policy and the mix policy as a basis for their communication with the ECB. It is also the Eurogroup's responsibility to adopt \"general guidelines\" on exchange rate policy. Lastly, current tensions could be partly reduced if the political authorities were to approve the ECB's 2% inflation target.

Economic governance in the Euro Zone : change or conflict ? One might ask if, 50 years after the Treaty of Rome, it might not be a good idea to re-examine economic governance in the Euro Zone. On the whole, the current structure seems appropriate, even if politicians in certain countries have expressed dissatisfaction that the ECB is responsible for making the lion’s share of the decisions. Moreover, this structure is perfectly adaptable ; the revisions to the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) give more discretion to the national finance ministries, particularly within the Eurogroup, and address the overall posture of tax policy and the mix policy as a basis for their communication with the ECB. It is also the Eurogroup’s responsibility to adopt « general guidelines » on exchange rate policy. Lastly, current tensions could be partly reduced if the political authorities were to approve the ECB’s 2% inflation target. JEL classification : F15, F36, N14 On peut se demander si, 50 ans après le Traité de Rome, la gouvernance économique dans la zone euro ne doit pas être réexaminée. Au fond, la structure actuelle semble appropriée même si elle engendre quelque insatisfaction chez quelques hommes politiques dans certains pays parce que le théâtre de la prise de décision incombe largement à la BCE. En outre, la structure est parfaitement capable d’adaptation ; les révisions du Pacte de stabilité et de croissance (PSC) donnent plus de discrétion aux ministres des Finances nationaux, notamment au sein de l’Eurogroupe, pour se pencher aussi sur la posture d’ensemble de la politique fiscale et sur le policy mix comme une base de leur dialogue avec la BCE. Il est également du ressort de l’Eurogroupe d’adopter des « orientations générales » concernant la politique de taux de change. Enfin, la tension pourrait être en partie réduite si les autorités politiques approuvaient l’objectif d’inflation de 2% de la BCE. Classification JEL : F15, F36, N14

This article expands the hypothesis proposed by Peter F. Drücker and Dirk Baecker, that is, how the evolution of computer communication manifests and presses ahead the detemporization and poly-contextuality of information and therefore is said to be the driver for an unmanageable complexity within modern organizations. In order to do so, the article uses an illustrative case of Management by Objectives as it appears within the governmental programmes in Denmark associated with New Public Management. This case shows how this technology enables the production of a diversity of antagonistic images of the organization relative to its environment (polycontextuality) and in particular how these effects emerge due to different timebindings within organizations (organized temporality). As such the hypothesis is expanded in three ways: first of all, the hypothesis is expanded as polycontextuality is comprehended within the temporal dimension, that is, as the differences between timebindings. Second of all, the article renders probable these identity-problems of modern organizations but due to another technology which mediates communication: Management by Objectives. Thus, identity problems should be associated with other media of communication too, than the one of the computer communication. Third of all, the implications of identity problems of modern organizations are often associated with the impossibility of management or with a need for more complex ways of managing. The article is an attempt to specify this approach suggesting 2. order management as a matter of observing the observations enabled by management technologies. To these ends the article draws upon Luhmann's system theory in order to direct attention to these organizational identity problems. This contribution is not conclusive. It is an attempt to expand a strong hypothesis in the need of further investigation. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]