Marching to someone else’s beat or creating your own groove? Entrepreneurial agency and the transformation of the rhythms of everyday life

Dey, Pascal; Teasdale, Simon (6 July 2024). Marching to someone else’s beat or creating your own groove? Entrepreneurial agency and the transformation of the rhythms of everyday life In: 40th EGOS Colloquium. Milan, Italy. July 4-6, 2024.

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That entrepreneurship and context are related seems intuitive, yet this relationship requires theoretical development. This article draws on Henri Lefebvre’s Rhythmanalysis to suggest that focusing on the everyday provides a privileged vantage point for understanding how contextual forces permeate entrepreneurship and, conversely, how they are influenced by it. We adapt Lefebvre’s concepts to theorize that the everyday of entrepreneurship forms a rich and shifting symphony of rhythms. We further assume that entrepreneurial agency – the power to change contexts – includes the capacity to shape the rhythms of everyday life in specific ways. To illustrate and deepen our theorizing, we analyze the Brukman textile factory, an entrepreneurial squat, that was taken over by its former workers, who resumed production after the factory was abandoned by its owners. The vignette explores how entrepreneurial agency is enacted through the cultivation of moments of rupture (arrythmia) and moments of rhythmic harmony (eurhythmia). Our contribution is, first, to theorize the everyday as the ‘base’ where contextual forces are actualized through rhythmic ensembles of varying qualities and intensities, and second, that entrepreneurial agency involves the transformative capacity to shape these rhythms to produce novelty that creates value for entrepreneurs and others.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Division/Institute:	Business School > Institute for Innovation and Strategic Entrepreneurship Business School > Institute for Innovation and Strategic Entrepreneurship > Low-end Innovation Business School
Name:	Dey, Pascal0000-0003-2792-0061 and Teasdale, Simon
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
Language:	English
Submitter:	Pascal Dey
Date Deposited:	20 Aug 2024 15:23
Last Modified:	20 Aug 2024 15:23
Related URLs:	Organisation https://www.egos.org/2024_milan/general_...
Uncontrolled Keywords:	context, entrepreneurial agency, everyday, polyrhythmia, rhythms and rhythmanalysis, entrepreneurial squats
ARBOR DOI:	10.24451/arbor.22183
URI:	https://arbor.bfh.ch/id/eprint/22183