Is Time The Great Equalizer? How Interpersonal Time Request Processes are Shaped by and Reproduce Disparities

We extend the predominantly individual view on time use and inequality by spotlighting and sharpening the view of time request processes in the dyadic context of interpersonal interactions. Despite its prevalence, little research has examined how requests for time—a scarce resource with economic, psychological, and collective social meanings—unfold in organizations. Drawing from and integrating time and status literatures, we work toward a theory that unpacks the processes of conceiving of, making, interpreting, and responding to time requests occurring between two coworkers. Further, we theorize how forms of status disparity derived from both cues for achieved status (i.e., task-based expertise) and cues for ascribed status (i.e., observable demographic characteristics) shape how an initiator and a responder engage in time request processes, affecting their relative expenditures in psychological resources and clock time. We specify how dyadic temporal contracts emerge over time from an interaction history of time request episodes, which in turn exert normative influence on future time requests in ways that can reproduce disparities between organizational members. We conclude by outlining how our theorizing can enable future research and inform practices about time use and inequality.