TIME DUALISM AS A METHODOLOGICAL BASIS FOR ECONOMIC ANALYSIS AND MANAGERIAL DECISION-MAKING

Abstract

The time factor is one of the fundamental, but insufficiently systematized categories of economic science. The article is devoted to the study of the dual nature of time and its manifestations in socio-economic systems and processes of managerial decision-making. Based on the analysis of interdisciplinary approaches – from philosophy, physics, system dynamics and behavioral economics – the key pairs of duality of the time factor are identified and systematized: duration and order; astronomical and functional time; qualitative and quantitative characteristics; short-term and long-term horizons; time as the basis of economic laws and time as a limiting factor of spatio-temporal development; profit maximization and cost minimization as mutually complementary tasks. It is shown that the traditional use of astronomical time in economic analysis is methodologically limited, since objectively there is only functional time generated by real processes. The behavioral dimension of time duality – in particular, the phenomenon of hyperbolic discounting and the cognitive asymmetry of the perception of the present and the future – as well as the transformation of the temporal structure of economic processes in the context of digitalization and the functioning of complex adaptive systems are separately investigated. The results of the study are the basis for further study of the impact of time duality on the development of enterprises, regions and national economies.