Temporality and Meaningful Entrepreneurship

Temporality is an under-researched area in entrepreneurship and business ethics, even though entrepreneurs are particularly affected by a fast-paced work environment. How do they position themselves in relation to the acceleration of time in order to construct meaning for their activity? We draw on fifty-four semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurs to outline the different ways in which they perceive a faster pace of work. We show how the meaning they give to their activity varies according to whether they accept or resist the acceleration of time: (1) By claiming to accept a high work rate, entrepreneurs may see work as a way of keeping busy, having fun, forgetting, or achieving efficiency; (2) by asserting that they resist the acceleration of time, they view work as a way of setting ethical goals, doing their job better, experiencing unexpected encounters, or being creative. These two different perspectives on time and meaning are not incompatible: It is possible that achieving a harmonic balance between periods of acceleration and deceleration of time may foster the construction of meaningful entrepreneurship.