Bifurcating Time: How Entrepreneurs Reconcile the Paradoxical Demands of the Job

Abstract

Entrepreneurs have been portrayed in paradoxically contrasting ways in the literature. On the one hand, they are said to be intrepid optimists who venture forth with great persistence even in the face of considerable uncertainty and multiple failures; on the other hand, they are held to be realists who are quick to acknowledge the negative realities of their initiatives and adapt very quickly. In order to reconcile these contrasting views, this study tracks in real time the frequent confidential communications of an entrepreneur and his closest consultant and partner during the last 6 months of a failing venture. We are able to gain insight into how by adopting a positive "frame" or consistent mindset about the future, the entrepreneur is able to sustain confidence in the face of significant challenge while at the same time acknowledging and reacting to significant problems in the present. We propose that an intrinsic quality of an entrepreneur is this ability to integrate or reconcile these seeming opposites-to manage paradox, largely by bifurcating time-by making temporal distinctions, and we show how that person simultaneously can be optimistic and realistic, and persistent and adaptive.

Property Rights, Owner-Management, and Value Creation

“…We thus expect that family firms face a management dilemma created by commitment benefits on the one hand, and reliability, egocentrism, and succession hazards on the other, and anticipate that variance in their occurrence should help explain performance differences among family firms (Villalonga & Amit, 2006). More generally, our work speaks to the burgeoning literature on management dilemmas (Coff & Raffiee, 2015) and the paradoxical demands of the entrepreneur's job (Miller & Sardais, 2015). Lastly, we directly address the tension between control and value creation in entrepreneurial firms-that is, the dilemma between the throne and the kingdom that Wasserman (2006Wasserman ( , 2017 so eloquently described.…”

Sustaining Actor Engagement During the Opportunity Development Process

“…By adding a temporal lens (Ancona et al ., ) to the understanding of sustained actor engagement, we also offer new dependent and independent variables for entrepreneurship research (e.g., optimal pacing of actor engagement, entrepreneur's temporal capabilities). While studies have hinted at the importance of temporal capabilities for managers in general (Huy, ; Reinecke and Ansari, ), entrepreneurship scholars have been relatively silent on this issue (for exceptions, see Gersick, ; Lichtenstein et al ., ; Miller and Sardais, ). Our arguments suggest that examining the influence of timing—and, by extension, entrepreneurs’ temporal capabilities—is not only useful when establishing a legal entity or writing a business plan (Delmar and Shane, ), but also when interacting, often iteratively, with a variety of actors.…”

“…Specifically, while time can be ‘objectively portrayed and interpreted based on the measured, linear, forward‐moving, and exact clock time’ (Ancona et al ., : 646), it can also reflect the subjective experience of each individual (Staudenmayer, Tyre, and Perlow, ). The objective timing of entrepreneurial activities has been explored in the entrepreneurship literature (e.g., Delmar and Shane, ; Lichtenstein et al ., ), but only a few studies examine how entrepreneurs experience and interpret time (Fischer et al ., ; Miller and Sardais, ; Morris et al ., ). We explain how entrepreneurs can influence both the subjective perception of time by external actors and the objective time of the opportunity development process to sustain actor engagement.…”

“…Management scholars have introduced the concept of temporal capability, defined as ‘the ability to comprehend various temporal conceptions about change (e.g., clock, inner, social times) and dimensions (e.g., sequencing, timing, pacing), to discriminate against them, and to use this information to guide thinking and action’ (Huy, : 610). Temporal capabilities may involve the pacing of strategic events (Gersick, ) or viewing present and future events with different mind‐sets (Miller and Sardais, ). We examine how an entrepreneur can use temporal capabilities to facilitate external actor engagement over time.…”

Missing the Point? Finding Contextual Detail in Entrepreneurship and Small Firm Scholarship

“…This account cannot be empirically reviewed, challenged or reinterpreted by other scholars, hence placing primacy on the initial recollection and interpretation of the author(s). Davidsson and Wiklund (2001) develop this points further in their review of the entrepreneurship field: ÒReal time studies are valuable as retrospective approaches are likely to be flawed by memory decay, hindsight bias and rationalization after the fact.Ó Yet, since publication of their article, few have taken up the call (an interesting example being Miller & Sardais, 2013 who utilise a diary approach to capture more detailed temporal dynamics of practice). It can only be speculated that the relative dearth of real time analysis in entrepreneurship scholarship owes to a perceived lack of analytical frameworks that deal with such data, or perhaps even a reticence to deal in findings that are purposively not generalizable.…”