Temporality and meaningful entrepreneurship

Temporality is an under-researched area in entrepreneurship and business ethics, even though entrepreneurs are particularly affected by increases in the pace of working life. 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, participate in, 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, or forgetting; (2) by declaring that they actively participate in the fast pace of work, they see entrepreneurial activity as a means of achieving success and efficiency; (3) 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 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.