Influence of Managers’ Time Orientation on Strategic Practices: The Case in The United Arab Emirates

Influence of Managers’ Time Orientation on Strategic Practices: The Case in the United Arab Emirates

2.1 Time Orientation:

• Human behavior is affected by an individual’s perception of time.
• The inclination towards a particular period of time is a function of both personal and societal factors.
• Time orientation is regarded as an unconscious process of assigning one’s life experiences to specific time frames.
• Over or under emphasizing one of the three temporal frames when making decisions helps classifying people in their respective orientation.
• Demographic factors can influence a person’s attitude towards time.
• Future orientation is inversely related to age: orientation towards the past progresses whereas orientation towards the future regresses as a person ages.
• Every culture has a dominantly accepted view of time, which influences and explains how the construct is perceived by the masses and shapes social norms: traditional societies tend to be past-oriented, while modern societies are more likely to be future-oriented.
• The construct of time perspective was initially conceptualized in theory by means of four dimensions, namely: extension, density, coherence, and directionality: extension quantifies how far ahead an individual is able to look into his or her future; density indicates the number of events that are envisioned in foresight. The dimension of coherence measures how well structured the vision of the future is, and directionality refers to an individual’s perception of how fast time is moving from the present to the future.
• Monochronic cultures, typically Western and European societies, place significant value on time and regard it as something that needs to be accounted for These societies tend to be task oriented and focused on achieving efficiency.
• Polychronic cultures, such as Asian and Arab societies, have a more relaxed view of time and favor social interactions over timely accomplishment of tasks.
• The perception of time is categorized into three categories: linear, circular, and procedural: the linear view is the one that is most typical in Western and European societies, which perceive time on a discrete scale of past, present, and the future. Asian and Arab cultures, on the other hand, perceive time as a circular concept, composed of repetitive events, with future occurrences expected to be similar to those in the past. Lastly, African societies are considered mostly procedural; where behavior is largely driven by activities. Here emphasis is laid on completion of tasks, while the time taken to complete an activity is unimportant.
• Nations that score high on long-term orientation tend to embrace values that are slanted towards the future, while nations that score low on long-term orientation hold values that are oriented towards the present. Expanding on Hofstede’s research, studies have noted that future-oriented societies tend to have a long-term focus and a willingness to sacrifice short-term benefits; a finding that has significant implications in the realm of management practices.

1. Strategic Management Practices:

• Strategic management is a comprehensive and sustainable approach to practicing managerial decision making, which involves examining both present and future environments to develop and implement organizational goals.
• A manager’s orientation towards strategic work can be viewed in terms of the emphasis laid on long term planning, as well as by means of their involvement in the various stages of the strategic decision making process.
• Lower level managers ranked strategic objectives as less important, more so because their performance was assessed in terms of achievement operational, not strategic, goals.
• Strategic management is concerned with long term objectives that cover non-routine, complex, and a wide array of responsibilities. It also requires managers to have the ability to make efficient allocation of scarce organizational resources to achieve competitive advantage.
• Strategic decisions involve diverse elements and impact the firm on a much larger scale than functionally specific operational decisions. Those involved in strategic roles are in charge of anticipating and managing organization wide change.
• Strategic work practices place prime importance on assessment of both the external and internal environment and are driven by stakeholder expectations.
• Future-oriented individuals are more prone to taking risks when compared to past-oriented individuals.
• Studies have noted that individuals with long-term orientation have a tendency to delay immediate gratification.
• Present-oriented managers are typically preoccupied with short-term goals, while future-oriented managers have a preference for long-term goals.
• Long-term-oriented managers are less susceptible to escalation of commitment to a failing project than those who are short-term oriented and focused on immediate profits.
• Time orientation influences the preference for, and the importance assigned to, strategic activities.
• Present oriented managers, tend to focus on efficiency and are less concerned about future growth or sustainability.
• Future oriented managers have the willingness to defer maximization of immediate profits in order to increase their market share and have the future success of their firms at heart rather than the short-term wealth of their shareholders.
• The short-term horizon of United States firms was considered as a contributing factor behind the loss of their dominance in various industries, as well as the reason behind the lesser attention they paid to research and development.
• Future-oriented managers explore and create opportunities for the future.

1. The Middle Eastern Context

• Strategic management and planning lead to improved organizational performance in Jordan. Similarly, Elbanna (2010) has reported an increased emphasis towards strategic planning activities across public and private sector organizations in the UAE.
• Arab countries, in general, are classified as having a short term time orientation, with an emphasis on the past. Entrepreneurs in Arab countries employ a reactive approach to dealing with change and demonstrate minimal proactivity in managing their business affairs.
• Arab managers are resistant to long range planning due to  their fatalistic orientation and strong religious beliefs
• Westerns value time and organize events around the clock, whereas Arabs grant little or no significance to time and tends to organize events around people.
• Some managers across different business sectors in the UAE specifically demonstrate a positive attitude towards strategic planning. Contradictory accounts of the managerial practices in this region signify the need for a more thorough and less subjective assessment of these constructs.

1. Bivariate Correlations

• Hypothesis 1: Time orientation, visioning ability, perceived uncertainty, and strategic practice are directly (positively) correlated with each other.
• The strength of association between the variables of interest is determined by correlation coefficients.
• All three variables showed significant positive correlations: future oriented managers tend to have stronger visioning abilities and an inclination towards performing strategic tasks. Managers oriented in the past, on the other hand, are more likely to have weaker visioning abilities and a greater preference for operational responsibilities in comparison to strategic work.
• Managers with future time orientations, and stronger visioning ability, perceive a greater degree of uncertainty in their environment.

6. Conclusion

• Time orientation is a significant predictor of strategic practice, and that this relationship is partially mediated by an individual’s visioning ability
• Participants who considered themselves as future oriented had a stronger visioning ability, and showed greater preference for performing strategic activities than those oriented in the past.
• Participants who reported themselves as past oriented were found to be weaker at visioning a future image for their companies and more inclined towards performing routine operational tasks at their organizations.
• While indirect effect of time orientation on strategic work through visioning ability is positive, the study also
• Notes that the effect is stronger when the level of uncertainty in the environment is perceived as low. Thus, relatively future oriented managers seem to be better at envisioning the future state of their organizations, which in turn translates into their inclination to perform strategic work, but more so in cases where the level of uncertainty is not high. When managers perceive the degree of uncertainty in the environment as high, they envision an unstable future, which reduces their tendency to plan ahead and diminishes their preference for carrying out strategic activities.

1. Managerial Implications

• The study emphasizes the role of future time orientation and visioning ability in enhancing strategic management practices. Managers who are interested in strategic roles should, therefore, work on expanding their time horizons to be more futuristic and train themselves to be better visionaries.

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