Your time and my time: a temporal approach to groupware calendar systems

Groupware calendar systems (GCS)—on-line, networked calendar software—are increasingly being used in large organizations. This paper presents a study of the use of GCS in organizations. It reviews major issues in the area, showing that current efforts lack attention to the temporal aspect, which seems to be at the center of a GCS. Sociotemporal order is a foundation of social organization, and as such it is embedded in the use of GCS. The paper reports on a survey of GCS use in a business organization to show the relevancy of the temporal approach. It concludes by showing the increasing importance of GCS in particular and calendar technologies in general in new patterns of working (virtual, mobile, and flexible) in emerging forms of organizations.