Becoming Both: A Processual Study On How Academic Entrepreneurs Use Temporality To Construct And Negotiate Identity

Sammanfattning

Purpose: As academic entrepreneurship becomes increasingly common, yet insufficiently understood as an ongoing identity process, this study examines how academic entrepreneurs construct and negotiate dual role identities, i.e. as academics and as entrepreneurs. Particular attention is paid to the role of temporality in that process. This study therefore asks: how do academic entrepreneurs use temporality in the construction and negotiation of role identities, and which processes does this involve? Methodology: Eleven semi-structured interviews were conducted with academic entrepreneurs affiliated with Lund University, ranging from PhD researchers to professors across various innovation-related disciplines. Interviews were complemented by participative observation across four workshops at LU Innovation's Insights Program. Data were analyzed through a combination of narrative analysis and grounded theory strategy, attending to how individuals reconstruct and reorder temporal selves in conversation. Theoretical framing: The study draws on role identity theory, identity work, narrative self-identity, liminality, and boundary work, situated within a process-philosophical ontology. In this study, temporality, understood as the lived experience of past, present, and future, serves as the central analytical lens, extending Kaplan and Orlikowski’s (2013) concept of temporal work to the level of individual identity construction. Contributions: The main contribution of this study revolves around the role of temporality in identity construction, which is addressed in relation to several existing concepts. Firstly, we argue that “the use of temporality” is an active mechanism through which academic entrepreneurs reconstruct past events and project future selves to stabilize identity in the present. Secondly, it argues that boundary work is itself an ongoing temporal practice rather than a stable outcome. Thirdly, we reframe role duality as a permanent condition managed through shifting role salience, expressed through three microprocesses: ‘unifying dual roles’, ‘transitioning between salient roles’, and ‘transitioning between non-salient roles’. The study ultimately proposes a conceptual model that integrates these findings, and captures identity construction as a dynamic and non-linear process in which past reconstructions and future projections shape how dual roles are enacted in the present. In the model, role duality, boundary work, and identity work are depicted as three interconnected macroprocesses through which academic entrepreneurs continuously move, conditioned at every point by the use of temporality.