The Temporal Structuring of Creative Projects: Organizing Creativity through (Dis-) Entrainment

创造力不是一个线性的过程。相反，正如研究证实的那样，复杂性、非线性和不确定性是创造过程的关键特征。特别是，研究表明，创造过程涉及时间的复杂性，如“时序”和“凯罗”之间的紧张关系，以及所涉及的不同参与者之间的多个时间取向。到目前为止，相关研究侧重于一种特殊的组织实践，以应对创造性项目在时间上的多重背景所带来的挑战：夹带。夹带的实践是针对复杂项目生态中的多个时间结构的同步。这种相当机械的夹带概念化最近被批评为忽视了异步性对组织的潜在好处。此外，夹带不能简化为一维的、功能主义的优化工作。相反，组织行为者必须表演“夹带之舞”，即他们必须同时在内源性和外源性步行者之间导航，有时他们可能别无选择，只能暂时故意将活动分开。虽然先前的研究越来越重视夹带的多重实践，但各自研究的主要关注点是经典表现。到目前为止，还没有系统地探讨夹带和(更重要的是，解除夹带)和创造性之间的相互依赖。夹带可能会导致生产性摩擦，从而刺激创造力；相反，创造性的想法可能需要节奏或阶段“错位”才能萌芽和蓬勃发展。为了进一步概念化夹带和解夹在组织创造力中的作用，通过调查音乐和药物研究领域的实践，我们试图在至少四个方向上推进时间结构的研究。首先，我们的目标是在这两个领域的不同分析水平上系统化影响创造过程的相关时间结构的多样性。其次，我们的目标是突出非夹带作为组织创造力的一种重要实践的作用。第三，我们的目标是揭示物质在这两个领域创意项目中的作用。第四，我们的目标是超越对不同的时间结构和实践在创造过程中发挥作用的描述，通过应用比较设计来帮助我们发展命题，即哪些(非)夹带的实践在哪些领域背景下和在创造过程的不同阶段培养创造力。总体而言，该项目旨在开发关于时间结构、时间结构实践和创造力之间关系的可测试命题，以便将夹带作为组织创造力的一种形式进行理论化。

Creativity is not a linear process. Rather, as research has corroborated, complexity, non-linearity and indeterminacy are key features of creative processes. Especially, research has shown that creative processes involve temporal complexity, such as the tension between “chronos” and “kairos”, and multiple temporal orientations among the different actors involved. Pertinent research so far has focused on one particular organizational practice to meet the challenges imposed by the temporal multicontextuality of creative projects: entrainment. Practices of entrainment are geared towards the synchronization of multiple temporal structures in complex project ecologies. This rather mechanistic conceptualization of entrainment has been criticized more recently for neglecting the potential benefits of asynchronicity for organizations. Moreover, entrainment cannot be reduced to a one-dimensional, functionalist optimization effort. Rather, organizational actors have to perform a “dance of entrainment”, i.e. they have to navigate simultaneously across endogenous and exogenous pacers and they may occasionally be left with no alternative other than to deliberately uncouple activities temporarily. Although previous research has increasingly appreciated multiple practices of entrainment, the chief concern of the respective research was with classic performance. So far, the inter¬dependence between entrainment and, importantly, disentrainment on the one hand, and creativity on the other, has not been explored in a systematic fashion. Entrainment might induce productive friction that stimulates creativity; conversely, creative ideas may require tempo or phase “misfit” in order to germinate and flourish. In order to conceptualize further the role of entrainment and disentrainment in organizing creativity, by investigating practices in the fields of music and pharmaceutical research we seek to advance research on temporal structuring in at least four directions. First, we aim to systematize the variety of relevant temporal structures influencing creative processes on different levels of analysis in both fields. Second, we aim to foreground the role of dis¬entrainment as an important practice by which creativity is organized. Third, we aim to unpack the role of materiality in creative projects in the two fields. Fourth, we aim to go beyond a description of different temporal structures and practices playing a role in creative processes by applying a comparative design that helps us to develop propositions regarding which practices of (dis-)entrainment foster creativity in which field contexts and in different stages of the creative process. Overall, the project intends to develop testable propositions regarding the relationship between temporal structures, practices of temporal structuring, and creativity in order to theorize entrainment as a form of organizing creativity.