Crosina (2024). Co-Constructing Community and Entrepreneurial Identity: How Founders Ascribe Self-Referential Meanings to Entrepreneurship.

Author:
Eliana Crosina –  Babson College

Interviewer:
Jaylon Sherrell – Harvard Business School

Article link: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00018392241231587

• Could you explain what the process was like when finding and securing a field site?

The process of finding and securing a field site in my case involved going to the site as a visitor several times. Eventually, I met a tenant who helped me gain access by introducing me to the leadership team. I had several meetings with the individuals who designed and ran the facility to explain what I was hoping to accomplish with my work. Upon hearing my intentions and tentative study design, they gave me permission to be in the space just like any other tenant.

• Do you have any advice when it comes to building trust at your field site? What worked for you and didn’t work well while being at OfficeCo?

Protracted presence is what was most important for me. I spent many days just “hanging out” at OfficeCo. My informants had to see my commitment including how I, myself, worked before they felt comfortable opening to me and trusting me.

• When doing qualitative research, sometimes it can be a little challenging collecting and analyzing so much data. I know that you mentioned taking intermittent breaks to analyze your data (on pp. 37) – what advice do you have when deciding when to take breaks to analyze your data?

I could not agree more that it can be challenging to gather and make sense of a lot of data, especially qualitative data – which in my case involved primarily observations, interviews, and drawings over time. Having an advisor and several trusted others with whom I could confide and gain advice from throughout my time in the field was very helpful. They, themselves, had done comparable work in other settings and helped me find my own groove, including suggesting when I should take breaks.  

• As a solo-authored project, could you provide any reflections on why you chose to do a solo-authored project and what it was like to manage the entire project by yourself? What advice do you have for others that chose to do a solo-authored project?

This relates to my answer to your prior question. My paper is solo-authored, but it does not mean I was ever alone. Better yet, I never felt alone. Several wonderful colleagues and friends contributed their advice and expertise. Their suggestions and support were particularly helpful when I felt “stuck.”  I am so thankful to these individuals, including my editor and reviewers! I recognize their precious contributions in my acknowledgments. My advice to those embarking on a solo-authored paper would be to find a few others, experts in the methodology, to support and help. 

• How do you think your study’s findings about physical spaces may apply to digital spaces (e.g., Zoom or Microsoft Team meetings, virtual worlds via VR), where users may have more (or less) access to control the space? Do you think anything may be different/similar?

It is difficult to know for sure. My suspicion however is that if those who occupy digital spaces can find consistency in their interactions with their colleagues, these interactions may lead to patterns comparable to the patterns I found in my study. In particular, I believe that protracted exposure to a few colleagues, even online, can contribute to the development of open relationships among remote colleagues that can help individuals self-realize. However, because in the 2D world some information is inherently lost, it may take longer to develop trust and to come to see a given colleague as a role prototype.  More work is needed in this area to test the veracity of what are just my speculative thoughts.

Interviewer bios:

Jaylon Sherrell (jsherrell@hbs.edu; website) is a doctoral student in the Micro Organizational Behavior unit at Harvard Business School. Leveraging qualitative and quantitative approaches, her research seeks to answer questions regarding how employees craft and manage their identities while being within online/virtual contexts, as well as interpersonal outcomes associated with their identities. Prior to attending Harvard, Jaylon worked within the human capital and workforce management technology industry. While there, she had the privilege of working on projects and campaigns with numerous Fortune 500 clientele, in several different industries.