Here we study temporal
subjectivities formed by actors’ accountabilities within a focal company and
its stakeholders. Subjectifications of accountabilities can make the associated
actors and temporalities divided, not taken as complete entities and in this
case, surprisingly, accountability, a construct often considered as positive by
nature, can begin to undermine itself. We rely on interviews and archival data
in a case company in the building industry. It appears that the accountabilities
of company representatives and stakeholders are tied to different temporal
subjectivies. The company employees are subjectified as related to the future while
many stakeholders are subjectified as related to the present and the past. Such
divergences in subjectivities result in clashes between them and in heightened
subjectivities as both parties are forced to defend their positions. Moreover,
this means that time is objectified as a construct to be used by the subjects. The
study shows how the actors’ accountability in the focal company is subjectified
in terms of future (not present) stakeholders’ needs, of its own future self,
and of a very general concept of “society”; “the future common good” – in an
engineering-oriented framework that restricts how present, past and stakeholders
are perceived. Based on the study, accountability in the past is separated from accountability for the past, both serving certain needs. The societal implications
of the findings are considered related to the analytical impossibility of “the
common good” and the importance of mending fragmented views on time, focal
company and stakeholders. It is also suggested that such divisions could be
mended by having the actors trying to see time constructs and stakeholders as more
complete entities and not only as objects that these actors use for they
advantage.