Framing and attention allocation of early-stage entrepreneurs

Due to the uncertainty they face, entrepreneurs are often confronted with ambiguous situations in which multiple events and issues compete for their limited attention. In this study, we analyze how entrepreneurs allocate and reallocate their attention. To do so, we use longitudinal data from six entrepreneurs whom we followed for one year through monthly interviews in which we focused on critical events and issues in the past four weeks and the actions the entrepreneurs took to address them. We find that one explanation for how entrepreneurs (re)allocate their attention is framing. In particular, we find that temporal framing, especially urgency, and regulatory framing (i.e., promotive and preventative framing) shape (changes in) the depth and breadth of attention given to critical events and issues. Our goal is to develop a process model that explains entrepreneurs’ attention allocation by linking selected mechanisms of the attention-based view to framing.