Time and Corporate Entrepreneurship

Time considerations are an important element of entrepreneurial processes in organizations. The current study analyzes the interface between time and entrepreneurship in the firm, examining the relationships between organizational time norms that are shaped by the firm and individual time structures that reflect individual personality differences and how individuals perceive and interpret the organizational time norms. The study seeks to determine if, how, which, and to what extent organizational time norms and individual time structures impact employees' attitudes toward undertaking entrepreneurial activities and practices related to corporate entrepreneurship in the organization. The chapter develops a model and five hypotheses that are empirically tested in an Israeli manufacturing company that encouraged its employees to pursue entrepreneurial activities within the company. The findings show that, as hypothesized, individual time structures moderate the relationship between organizational time norms and undertaking corporate entrepreneurial activities. It was found that under loose (flexible) organizational time norms, employees with defined time structures generated entrepreneurial proposals. In contrast, employees with vague time structures did not produce entrepreneurial proposals. The results highlight the importance of matching employee time structures with their firm's time norms as a means of promoting corporate entrepreneurial activities.