Abstract:  Time is one of the most important dimensions in both social world and the natural world. With the development of social practice, people are increasingly aware of the importance of time. In the study of organization, a consensus has been made that time is a strategic resource for both profitoriented social organizations such as business enterprises, and nonprofit social organizations such as association of social work. Timeliness is the inner characteristics of organization, which can make full use of time to better grasp timing and rhythm of the changes. Though there has been much literature on the time theories in organizations, a systematic summary of the time theories is still missing, making it difficult to grasp the development of the time theory. Therefore, by sorting out related domestic and foreign research literature, this paper tries to clarify the progress of time theory in the study of the organization. It describes in detail the concept and connotation of time, the connotation of time in organizations as well as the progress of time theories in organizational research. Furthermore, the article also makes suggestions in order to provide a valuable reference for future organizational research.

Key words: time, conception of time, timebased competition, time pacing