Time, Institutions, and Energy

It has become apparent to me that time, institutions, and energy are three critical factors with significant implications for entrepreneurship. Time and energy are integral concepts to our existence as evidenced by their frequent usage in conventional language. Institutions are the overarching social infrastructures, both tangible and intangible, that range from the prevailing culture to the types of government policy that influence how we think and act. This dissertation seeks to enhance understanding of these three elements, emphasizing their influence on entrepreneurship. Chapter 1 explores the notion of timing and its relevance for entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is a dynamic process that requires entrepreneurs to make judgments, decisions, and take action under uncertainty. The chapter begins by clarifying the philosophy of time through addressing fundamental questions such as, "what is time?" and "how do we experience time?". We establish a dualist view of time that separates the concept into objective and subjective time, and delineate four types of opportunity scenarios and discuss the extent to which timing is important to the outcome. Chapter 2 is a historical case study on the modern economic history of China from 1949 to 1976 through an Austrian Business Cycle Theory (ABCT) lens. Specifically, we explore how institutions impact the nature of business cycles after supplanting entrepreneurship. China's economy during this period can be categorized as a low freedom quasi-economy with high institutional interference. A rich context for extending ABCT that has yet to be examined. We find in this context that the business cycle has a short boom phase and a prolonged bust phase with an overall suppressed level of growth with destructive consequences. We discuss the findings in detail and offer future lines of research that may be fruitful. Chapter 3 proposes expected vigor as a novel antecedent to entrepreneurial intention. Expected vigor is a person's expected energetic experience from acting. We study this construct using surveys on a student sample and an entrepreneurship competition sample. We find that expected vigor significantly predicted entrepreneurial intention. We discuss the implications of our study along with prospective research that can extend from it.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctorate Degree

Grantor

University of Nevada, Reno

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Author dc:creator

• Chen, Qifan

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Sundali, James

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Packard, Mark
• Hanna, Alexis
• Pingle, Mark
• Pu, Xiaoyu

Statement dc:rights

• Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

Repository record dc:identifier.uri

https://scholarwolf.unr.edu/handle/11714/10946

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarwolf.unr.edu:11714/10946