What does it take for entrepreneurs to succeed in the entrepreneurial arena – particularly when their entrepreneurial deeds are driven by growth aspirations? We revisit Max Weber’s insights into the determining role of bureaucratic work to recalibrate entrepreneurship theory towards more holistic understandings of the entrepreneurial phenomenon, that place front and center the often tedious – yet entirely necessary – processes necessary for the realization of entrepreneurial dreams. Key theoretical kernels of Weberian thought drive our theorization of the existence of two phases of bureaucratization – the Weberian moment and the Weberian momentum – that we concomitantly scrutinize and refine via a qualitative study. This paper has implications for 1) the construct of “entrepreneurial work” at the core of the actualization perspective of entrepreneurship, 2) the “after the startup” turn in recent literature, 3) the problematization of the concept of creativity in entrepreneurial processes, as well as 4) the boundaries of entrepreneurial agency as conditioned by employees in processes of co-actualizing desirable futures.
