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

创造力不是一个线性过程。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性过程的关键特征。特别是，研究表明，创造过程涉及时间复杂性，例如“chronos”和“kairos”之间的紧张关系，以及不同参与者之间的多重时间取向。到目前为止，相关的研究都集中在一个特定的组织实践上，以应对创造性项目的时间多背景性所带来的挑战：娱乐。夹带的实践面向复杂项目生态中多个时间结构的同步。这种相当机械的娱乐概念化最近被批评为忽视了组织的异步性的潜在好处。此外，娱乐不能简化为一维的、功能主义的优化工作。相反，组织参与者必须表演“娱乐之舞”，也就是说，他们必须同时在内源性和外源性节奏者之间进行导航，他们可能偶尔会别无选择，只能故意暂时分开活动。尽管先前的研究越来越重视夹带的多种实践，但各自研究的主要关注点是经典表现。到目前为止，还没有以系统的方式探讨娱乐和（重要的是）娱乐与创造力之间的相互依赖关系。娱乐可能会引发富有成效的摩擦，从而激发创造力；相反，创造性的想法可能需要节奏或阶段“不适应”，以便发芽和蓬勃发展。为了进一步概念化夹带和去夹带在组织创造力中的作用，通过调查音乐和制药研究领域的实践，我们寻求在至少四个方向上推进对时间结构的研究。首先，我们的目标是在这两个领域的不同分析层面上，将影响创造过程的各种相关时间结构系统化。其次，我们的目标是突出干扰作为组织创造力的重要实践的作用。第三，我们的目标是在这两个领域的创意项目中揭示物质性的作用。第四，我们的目标是超越对在创造过程中发挥作用的不同时间结构和实践的描述，通过应用一种比较设计，帮助我们发展关于哪些（非）娱乐实践在哪些领域背景和创造过程的不同阶段促进创造力的命题。总体而言，该项目旨在发展关于时间结构、时间结构实践和创造力之间关系的可测试命题，以便将娱乐作为组织创造力的一种形式理论化。

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.