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Tor Hernes

Professor

Emner
Beslutningstagning Forandringsledelse Ledelse Organisation Kunstig intelligens Analyse Kvalitativ metode Grøn omstilling Psykologi

Primary research areas

Organizational time, continuity change

How organizations address challenges of change and continuity while addressing multiple time horizons, inc

Time and temporality

I take a process view of time to understand how time is enacted by people and organizations through their on-going activities. This view allows for different understanding than clock-based time views and offers novel understanding of the interplay between organizational change and continuity.

Making people think differently about time and organization

Exploring how time can be used to understand the change-continuity interplay in organizations 

Organization and management research and practice have been dominated by linear views of time, mainly focusing on future opportunities and constraints. Linear views may be necessary, but they are insufficient to understand the contemporary world of emerging crises. My research and teaching is rooted in a process view of time. Rather than taking linear time for granted, I work with the idea of time—particularly the interplay between present, past and future–is continually conceived, negotiated, and enacted in organizations. Such a view enables understanding of time as the very essence of organizing and not merely a liners back-drop for organizing.  

Taking this view has enabled me to publish papers in top-tier journals on organizational phenomena, such strategy, identity, narrative, change, projects, resilience, and sustainability. My theoretical contributions have appeared in books, where I have developed ideas from thinkers in philosophy and sociology. By engaging with foundational ideas I have been able to show the importance of thinking differently about time and temporality  in today’s context.  

I enjoy taking some of these ideas to the class-room, and it is a pleasure to see how experienced managers in our executive programme become energized by adopting a different time lens to challenges such as strategic change.  

Recent research projects

The Temporality of Food Innovation

The project, financed by the Velux Foundation, aimed at advancing the understanding of the temporality of innovations, explaining how novelty is created as actors engage with (re-)inventing the past to facilitate the emergence and institutionalization of novel practices for the future. The project analysed innovations at different levels (organization, event, and field) in the Danish food sector as a particular field of organizational and institutional actors.

Making Distant Futures Actionable

There is an urgent need to understand how companies make distant futures actionable, creating a path forward. This challenge is at the core of the Actionable Futures Project, financed by the Novo Nordisk Foundation. The project studies Danish companies in different industries, which are among the early movers in the efforts to create a zero-carbon future. The companies comprise Ørsted in energy; Arla in foods, and Novo Nordisk in life-science. In each company, we study ongoing projects with the potential for reaching distant future climate goals such as how off-shore windfarms may create nature-based solutions in marine biodiversity; how animal-based farming may become regenerative across different local ecosystems; and how developing circular solutions for the recycling of medical plastic waste can become resourceful on a global scale.
Link to COT

Outside activities

Tor Hernes is adjunct professor at USN Business School, University of South-Eastern Norway