Self-managing on the entrepreneurial rollercoaster

Entrepreneurs apply self-regulation to achieve their entrepreneurial goals and to achieve the best combination of what one has available. Many patterns of self-regulation break down when people are challenged, under stress or fatigued; typical conditions for entrepreneurial activity. Through the adoption of unobtrusive wearable sensors this study makes a methodological contribution by visualizing the depletion and recovery cycles and associating these with the ups and downs of the entrepreneurial journey. We show how the cycles of self-regulation depletion and recovery are impacted by the entrepreneur journey, demonstrating the importance of maintaining self-regulation and potential consequences on performance and wellbeing when self-regulation is not maintained. We put forward a research agenda for the study of entrepreneurial action, calling on researchers to expand the theory of entrepreneurial action by adding an entrepreneur centred explanation for entrepreneurial activities.