TIME AND TIMING IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP RESEARCH: INSIGHTS FROM A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW

Abstract

The factor of time has drawn considerable attention in entrepreneurship research for the past decades. There is widespread agreement among scholars that time plays a significant role in the development of new ventures: research on life cycle theory, timing of activities, and individual time perspectives had a lasting impact on the academic field. However, the broad interpretation of temporality extends the field of research to various disciplines and leads to a strong fragmentation. Therefore, even in recent work, scholars still call for the adoption of a dynamic view in entrepreneurship research and encourage the use of time-conscious methodologies. This paper conducts a systematic literature review to provide an overview on the thematic foci, methods, main findings, sample specifics, and open questions in this area. We perform co-citation analyses to quantify the extent of bibliographic fragmentation and thereby identify potential knowledge and research gaps that need to be addressed by future research.