Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-5nwft Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-30T17:47:58.180Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

12 - The Temporality of Entrepreneurship

How Entrepreneurs Blend Memories and Projections in the Ongoing Present of New Venture Creations

from Part III - New Ways of Organizing Work, Digitality and the Politics of Time

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 June 2023

By
Christian Garmann Johnsen
Edited by
François-Xavier de Vaujany ,
Robin Holt  and
Albane Grandazzi
François-Xavier de Vaujany
Affiliation:
Universite Paris Dauphine-PSL
Robin Holt
Affiliation:
Copenhagen Business School
Albane Grandazzi
Affiliation:
Grenoble Ecole de Management
Get access

Summary

In this chapter, I explore the different temporal layers involved in entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is the process of bringing something into being that did not exist before – either a new venture, product or service – and this process can only be understood if we consider how entrepreneurship unfolds in time. However, there is no ‘one’ time of entrepreneurship. Instead, time have many layers that are expressed in the way that entrepreneurship unfolds. To explore these layers, I draw on insights from the philosophy of time, and show how these insights are valuable for thinking about entrepreneurship. I focus on two ways that time relates to entrepreneurship. The first is the way that entrepreneurship is a journey or process. The second is the way that entrepreneurship involves actions that take place in time. Although these two aspects of entrepreneurship are interrelated, they must nevertheless be understood against the backdrop of different categories of time.

Keywords

entrepreneurshiptimeexperienceprocess
Type
Chapter
Information
Organization as Time
Technology, Power and Politics
 , pp. 256 - 274
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alvarez, S. A. & Barney, J. B. (2007). Discovery and creation: Alternative theories of entrepreneurial action. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 1(1–2), 11–26. https://doi.org/10.1002/sej.4Google Scholar
Aristotle, & McKeon, R. (2001). The Basic Works of Aristotle. Modern Library.Google Scholar
Augustine (1960). The Confessions of St. Augustine. New York: Image Books.Google Scholar
Bergson, H. (2001). Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness. New York: Dover Publications.Google Scholar
Brattström, A. & Wennberg, K. (2022). The entrepreneurial story and its implications for research. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 46(6), 1443–68. https://doi.org/10.1177/10422587211053802Google Scholar
Chiles, T. H., Vultee, D. M., Gupta, V. K., Greening, D. W. & Tuggle, C. S. (2010). The philosophical foundations of a radical Austrian approach to entrepreneurship. Journal of Management Inquiry, 19(2), 138–64. https://doi.org/10.1177/1056492609337833CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crawford, G. C., Dimov, D. & McKelvey, B. (2016). Realism, empiricism, and fetishism in the study of entrepreneurship. Journal of Management Inquiry, 25(2), 168–70. https://doi.org/10.1177/1056492615601506Google Scholar
Davidsson, P. (2015). Entrepreneurial opportunities and the entrepreneurship nexus: A re-conceptualization. Journal of Business Venturing, 30(5), 674–95. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2015.01.002CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidsson, P. & Gruenhagen, J. H. (2021). Fulfilling the process promise: A review and agenda for new venture creation process research. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 45(5), 1083–118. https://doi.org/10.1177/1042258720930991Google Scholar
Dimov, D. (2007). From opportunity insight to opportunity intention: The importance of person–situation learning match. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 31(4), 561–83. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6520.2007.00188.xGoogle Scholar
Dimov, D. (2011). Grappling with the unbearable elusiveness of entrepreneurial opportunities. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 35(1), 57–81. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6520.2010.00423.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dimov, D. (2020). Opportunities, language, and time. Academy of Management Perspectives, 34(3), 333–51. https://doi.org/10.5465/amp.2017.0135CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dimov, D. & Pistrui, J. (2020). Recursive and discursive model of and for entrepreneurial action. European Management Review, 17(1), 267–77. https://doi.org/10.1111/emre.12360Google Scholar
Foss, N. J. & Klein, P. G. (2012). Organizing Entrepreneurial Judgment: A New Approach to the Firm. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139021173Google Scholar
Foss, N. J. & Klein, P. G. (2020). Entrepreneurial opportunities: Who needs them? Academy of Management Perspectives, 34(3), 366–77. https://doi.org/10.5465/amp.2017.0181Google Scholar
Gartner, W. B., Bird, B. J. & Starr, J. A. (1992). Acting as if: Differentiating entrepreneurial from organizational behavior. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 16(3), 13–32. https://doi.org/10.1177/104225879201600302Google Scholar
Garud, R. & Giuliani, A. P. (2013). A narrative perspective on entrepreneurial opportunities. Academy of Management Review, 38(1), 157–60. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2012.0055Google Scholar
Garud, R., Schildt, H. A. & Lant, T. K. (2014). Entrepreneurial storytelling, future expectations, and the paradox of legitimacy. Organization Science, 25(5), 1479–92. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2014.0915CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilbert-Walsh, J. (2010). Revisiting the concept of time: Archaic perplexity in Bergson and Heidegger. Human Studies, 33(2–3), 173–90. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-010-9158-5CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and Time. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Johnsen, C. G. & Holt, R. (2021). Narrating the facets of time in entrepreneurial action. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, OnlineFirst. https://doi.org/10.1177/10422587211038107Google Scholar
Johnsen, R. (2016). Boredom and organization studies. Organization Studies, 37(10), 1403–15. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840616640849Google Scholar
Kier, A. S. & McMullen, J. S. (2018). Entrepreneurial imaginativeness in new venture ideation. Academy of Management Journal, 61(6), 2265–95. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2017.0395CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirzner, I. M. (1997). Entrepreneurial discovery and the competitive market process: An Austrian approach. Journal of Economic Literature, 35(1), 60–85.Google Scholar
Kirzner, I. M. (2009). The alert and creative entrepreneur: A clarification. Small Business Economics, 32, 145–52. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-008-9153-7CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klein, P. G. (2008). Opportunity discovery, entrepreneurial action, and economic organization. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 2(3), 175–90. https://doi.org/10.1002/sej.50Google Scholar
Knight, F. H. (2005/1921). Risk, Uncertainty and Profit. New York: Cosimo Classics.Google Scholar
Lévesque, M. & Stephan, U. (2020). It’s time we talk about time in entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 44(2), 163–84. https://doi.org/10.1177/1042258719839711CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKelvie, A., Wiklund, J., McMullen, J. & Palubinskas, A. (2020). A dynamic model of entrepreneurial opportunity: Integrating Kirzner’s and Mises’s approaches to entrepreneurial action. Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, 23(3–4), 499–541. https://doi.org/10.35297/qjae.010078Google Scholar
McMullen, J. S. & Dimov, D. (2013). Time and the entrepreneurial journey: The problems and promise of studying entrepreneurship as a. Journal of Management Studies, 50(8), 1481–512. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12049Google Scholar
McMullen, J. S. & Shepherd, D. A. (2006). Entrepreneurial action and the role of uncertainty in the theory of the entrepreneur. Academy of Management Review, 31(1), 132–52. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2006.19379628Google Scholar
McTaggart, J. E. (1908). The unreality of time. Mind, 17(68), 457–74.Google Scholar
Mulhall, S. (2013). The Routledge Guidebook to Heidegger’s Being and Time. London & New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oosterhuis, H. (2016) Cycling, modernity and national culture. Social History, 41(3), 233–48. DOI: 10.1080/03071022.2016.1180897Google Scholar
Popp, A. & Holt, R. (2013). The presence of entrepreneurial opportunity. Business History, 55(1), 9–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2012.687539Google Scholar
Ramoglou, S. & Gartner, W. B. (2022). A historical intervention in the “opportunity wars”: Forgotten scholarship, the discovery/creation disruption, and moving forward by looking backward. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, OnlineFirst. https://doi.org/10.1177/10422587211069310Google Scholar
Ramoglou, S. & Tsang, E. W. K. (2016). A realist perspective of entrepreneurship: Opportunities as propensities. Academy of Management Review, 41(3), 410–34. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2014.0281Google Scholar
Ricœur, P. (1980). Narrative time. Critical Inquiry, 7(1), 169–90.Google Scholar
Ricœur, P. (1985). Time and Narrative (Vol. 3). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Sarasvathy, S. D. (2001). Causation and effectuation: Toward a theoretical shift from economic inevitability to entrepreneurial contingency. Academy of Management Review, 26(2), 243–63. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2001.4378020Google Scholar
Sarasvathy, S. D. (2021). Even-if: Sufficient, yet unnecessary conditions for worldmaking. Organization Theory, 2(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/26317877211005785CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schatzki, T. R. (2006). The time of activity. Continental Philosophy Review, 39(2), 155–82. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-006-9026-1Google Scholar
Schrag, C. O. (1970). Heidegger on repetition and historical understanding. Philosophy East and West, 20(3), 287–95.Google Scholar
Scott, D. (2006). The ‘concept of time’ and the ‘being of the clock’: Bergson, Einstein, Heidegger, and the interrogation of the temporality of modernism. Continental Philosophy Review, 39(2), 183–213. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-006-9023-4Google Scholar
Shane, S. & Venkataraman, S. (2000). The promise of entrepreneurship as a field of research. Academy of Management Review, 25(1), 217–26. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2000.2791611Google Scholar
Spinosa, C., Flores, F. & Dreyfus, H. L. (1997). Disclosing New Worlds: Entrepreneurship, Democratic Action, and the Cultivation of Solidarity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Suddaby, R., Bruton, G. D. & Si, S. X. (2015). Entrepreneurship through a qualitative lens: Insights on the construction and/or discovery of entrepreneurial opportunity. Journal of Business Venturing, 30(1), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2014.09.003Google Scholar
Svetlova, E. (2021). On the relevance of Knight, Keynes and Shackle for unawareness research. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 45(5), 989–1007. https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/beab033CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Townsend, D. M., Hunt, R. A., McMullen, J. S. & Sarasvathy, S. D. (2018). Uncertainty, knowledge problems, and entrepreneurial action. Academy of Management Annals, 12(2), 659–87. https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2016.0109Google Scholar
Vogel, P. (2017). From venture idea to venture opportunity. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 41(6), 943–71. https://doi.org/10.1111/etap.12234Google Scholar
Wadhwani, R. D., Kirsch, D., Welter, F., Gartner, W. B. & Jones, G. G. (2020). Context, time, and change: Historical approaches to entrepreneurship research. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 14(1), 3–19. https://doi.org/10.1002/sej.1346Google Scholar
Wood, M. S., Bakker, R. M. & Fisher, G. (2021). Back to the future: A time-calibrated theory of entrepreneurial action. Academy of Management Review, 46(1), 147–71. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2018.0060Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×