Centre for Organization and Time (COT)
The Centre for Organization and Time (COT) explores how organizational actors experience and enact time — and how time, in turn, shapes organizations and society.
About (Panel content)
About us
At the Centre for Organization and Time (COT) at Copenhagen Business School, we draw on processual, relational, and critical perspectives from social sciences and humanities to better understand how organizational actors enact their time and how these enactments shape them.
By developing more dynamic and expansive models of time, we aim to understand not only how organizations function but also how they contribute to shaping societies.
Our temporal focus applies to several areas of research, teaching, and engagement, including organization theory, project studies, entrepreneurship, creativity, innovation, sustainability, business history, critical time studies, accounting, strategy, and leadership.
The centre addresses questions such as:
- How do actors enact and experience near and distant pasts and distant futures in the present?
- How do actors connect multiple temporalities in and through time?
- How does temporary organizing enable transformations of business and societies?
- How do actors connect pasts and futures through projects?
We are an intellectually curious, engaged, and generative group, committed to exploring the interplay between time and organization. COT was founded in 2017 to advance a research agenda on time and temporality in organization and management studies. Building on a tradition of process ontology, the centre has developed into a vibrant research environment that brings together diverse backgrounds, all connected by a shared curiosity about time, how it is shaped, and how it in turn shapes organizations and society.
Today, COT is both a community of scholars based at CBS in the greater Copenhagen area and an international hub for researchers interested in time and organization. Alongside our internal COT research workshops, where we discuss our ongoing research, we host activities for both regional and international research communities. These include a CBS-wide reading group, where we read and discuss classic and contemporary texts and draw inspiration from different disciplines, and our @bout Time, a hybrid seminar series that hosts distinguished scholars to discuss their perspectives and work in light of research on organization and time, open to our wider international network. Follow us on LinkedIn to hear about upcoming
COT Events
Check our LinkedIn Page
Activities (Panel content)
New podcast (in Danish) with Majken Schultz
Klimamål og net zero med Majken Schultz (Podcastserie: Rig på viden) I denne episode af Rig på Viden har podcast vært André Thormann besøg af professor ved CBS og chair i Carlsbergfondet, Majken Schultz.
Sammen med en gruppe forskere har Majken undersøgt, hvordan virksomheder arbejder med klimamål i praksis: Hvad kendetegner de virksomheder, der sætter ambitiøse mål? Og endnu vigtigere – hvilke konkrete handlinger sætter de i gang for faktisk at nå dem, i stedet for at udskyde omstillingen?
Vi taler om ledelse, ansvar og om at komme i gang i tide – før klimamålene blot bliver flotte formuleringer i en strategi.
Collaboration and Outreach
Podcasts
- Only in Danish: Podcast med Majken Schultz - Klimamål og net zero med Majken Schultz - Rig på Viden
- Only in Danish: Ny podcast med Majken Schultz — Få det til at ske
- Discussion of the paper: Time as a Research Lens: A Conceptual Review and Research Agenda with Tor Hernes and Blagoy Blagoev — Organized by Practice Process Reading Group
People (Panel content)
People at COT
Below you will find a list of staff connected to the Centre for Organization and Time (COT).
Click on the picture to get the full profile information of each researcher.
COT Associates
COT Associates
Anne Reff Pedersen, Professor
Anthony Hussenot, Professor at Université Côte d’Azur Nice.
Christina Luethy, Postdoc at Lund University.
Christina Lubinski, Professor
Dan Wadhwani, Fletcher Jones Professor of Entrepreneurship at University of the Pacific and professor at Copenhagen Business School.
Daniel Nyberg, Director PRME & Professor, University of Queensland Business School, Australia
Haridimos Tsoukas, Professor at University of Cyprus and Warwick Business School, UK.
Henrik Koll, Associate Professor at University of Southern Denmark.
Iben Sandal Stjerne, Assistant Professor at Technical University of Denmark.
Jane Bjørn Vedel, Associate Professor
Jennifer Howard-Grenville, Professor, University of Cambridge, UK
Joanna Karmowska, Senior Lecturer, Oxford Brookes University.
Juliane Reinecke, Professor, Said Business School, UK
Mie Plotnikof, Associate Professor at Aarhus University
Raghu Garud, Professor, Smeal College of Business, Penn State University, US
Roy Suddaby, Professor Winspear Chair of Organization Theory at University of Victoria, Canada.
Shaz Ansari, Professor of Strategy, Innovation and Organization at Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.
Simon Grondin, Professor at École de Psychologie at Université Laval (Québec, Canada).
Stine Grodal, Associate Professor at Northeastern University D'amore-McKim School.
Tima Bansal, Professor, Ivey Business School, Canada
Research (Panel content)
COT researchers' publications
Actionable Futures: Making Distant Futures
Actionable
Explores how companies turn distant future climate goals into actionable strategies in collaboration with Ørsted, Arla, and Novo Nordisk.
Project members
- Professor Majken Schultz (PI & project responsible)
- Professor Tor Hernes (Project responsible)
- Assistant Professor Miriam Feuls (Novo Nordisk sub-project)
- Postdoc Sunny Mosangzi Xu (Arla sub-project)
- Postdoc Jonathan Feddersen (Ørsted sub-project)
Funded by: The Novo Nordisk Foundation
Project period: 2021–2025
Podcasts
- Listen to Majken Schultz talk about the project in the CBS Sustain Podcast
- Listen to Majken Schultz discuss the project in Danish in the Få det til at ske podcast (in Danish only)
Partner companies
- Arla Foods
- Novo Nordisk
- Ørsted
International research partners
- Professor Tima Bansal, Ivey Business School, Western University, Canada
- Professor Raghu Garud, Smeal College of Business, Penn State University, US
- Professor Daniel Nyberg, University of Newcastle, Australia
- Professor Juliane Reinecke, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
- Professor Jennifer Howard-Grenville, University of Cambridge, UK
Project description
The industry has a critical role to play in creating a zero-carbon future, both by providing sustainable solutions and by solving problems within their own sectors.
Many companies are committing to long-term climate goals that include not only emissions, but also biodiversity and waste. Yet the pathways to reach these goals remain uncertain. Companies face the dilemma of moving toward ambitious targets without knowing the exact steps to get there. Not acting is not an option.
The Actionable Futures project examines how companies make distant futures actionable. It studies Danish companies that are among the early movers in the green transition — Ørsted in energy, Arla in food, and Novo Nordisk in life science.
Each case focuses on ongoing projects with the potential to achieve long-term climate goals, such as:
- offshore windfarms creating nature-based solutions for biodiversity
- regenerative farming in dairy production
- circular solutions for recycling medical plastic waste
Follow the project
The project will regularly host open seminars relevant to the research themes and participate in international conferences such as EGOS and the Academy of Management.
To join, sign up by emailing kts.ioa@cbs.dk to receive invitations and project news. For further updates, please follow us on LinkedIn.
Sub-projects
Novo Nordisk
Novo Nordisk, a global life science company specializing in the treatment of diabetes and other serious chronic diseases, has committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2045.
Confronted with the climate crisis that intersects with biodiversity loss and, in particular, the plastics crisis, Novo Nordisk has developed a Circular for Zero strategy. This encompasses several initiatives to implement a circular economy approach in its products, company, and supply chain.
The sub-project follows the corporate environmental strategy team and two initiatives to develop circular solutions to the plastic dilemma: recycling solutions and design solutions. It explores how the circular approach is translated and integrated into different organizational units and how innovative activities are developed through multi-actor collaboration on a global scale.
Ørsted
Ørsted, a Danish energy company, has set the goal of becoming biodiversity net positive in offshore wind farms by 2030.
The research has two main strands. The first investigates how Ørsted conceptually defines biodiversity net positive and develops a framework for measurement. The second examines pilot projects aimed at biodiversity enhancement, including constructing artificial reefs, growing corals on foundations, and building nesting structures for endangered birds.
The sub-project combines participant observation in meetings and events, interviews, and archival data. A retrospective study also explores Ørsted’s remarkable transformation from “black” to “green,” asking how the company managed to move faster than the broader energy system.
Arla
Arla, the Danish multinational dairy cooperative, has set a climate target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2030 and achieve net zero by 2050.
Acknowledging the responsibility of dairy farming for the climate crisis, Arla sees the opportunity to become part of the solution. One challenge is to develop solutions that fit all its farmer-owners across diverse production regions.
In the Regenerative Farming Pilot Network, 24 farmers across four regions (both organic and conventional) test regenerative principles in their dairy production systems. This farmer-led project explores how each pilot farm can apply regenerative practices and provide insights for wider adoption among Arla’s farmer-owners.
The sub-project investigates how regenerative principles can help Arla move toward its ambitious climate targets, while also addressing biodiversity and ecosystem challenges.