Temporal Anchoring Devices

TADs seem to be everywhere, used by organizations from different cultural and religious backgrounds, operating in different industries, and serving different markets. Yet, organizational scholars have paid little attention to TADs as a phenomenon worthy to be studied. Together with my co-author(s) we try to shed some lights on these widely used symbols, in three different papers. 

On this page, I provide the short abstract (if available) of each paper. 

Here you can find some of the pictures we have collected of TADs over the past years. Have you seen a TAD? Sharing = caring! 

Sign of the times: Effects of temporal anchoring devices on audience members’ perceptions of organizations

Stephanie Koornneef & Tal Simons

Abstract
Temporal anchoring devices (TADs) refer to short references to time often accompanied by a descriptor (e.g., ‘since year’). Although the use of TADs by organizations seems ubiquitous, prior studies have paid scant attention to the phenomenon. This paper utilizes theories on organizational temporality, sign theory, and visual attention to develop and test hypotheses on (i) when TADs are more likely to be noticed by external audience members, and (ii) what effects TADs have on audience members’ perception of the organization. We argue that external audience member’s evaluation of the organization is positively affected if the TAD the organization uses is aligned with generally valued characteristics of the organization’s field (e.g., if newness is aspired within the field, a TAD referring to the present is aligned with the organization’s field) and the member’s temporal orientation. We test our hypotheses in two sets of experiments. Overall, this paper offers a novel perspective on TADs referring to the past, present, and future that fills a gap in the literature on organizational temporality regarding the common and subtle use of temporal references.
organizational temporality
organizational character
visual attention
symbols
Laboratory experiments
eye-tracking

Symbolic bridges & false friends: When symbols cross field boundaries

Stephanie Koornneef, Achim Oberg, & Tal Simons

In this paper we look at which organizations are likely to use TADs and which TADs they use. We do so by re-constructing three german organizational fields: Health care, organic food, and software. 
organizational temporality 
symbols
networks
web study
scraping
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