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Tiona W. Zuzul

Associate Professor of Business Administration – Harvard Business School

DECEPTIONS: HOW ENTREPRENEURIAL NARRATIVES TIP INTO DECEPTION

Date: Friday, September 19, 2025
Time: 10:30 am – 12:00 pm
Location: Bronfman building, Room 046

Abstract

Drawing on a multi‑year ethnography of an early‑stage venture in a nascent industry, we develop a process model showing how future‑oriented narratives in start‑ups transform into what we term dominant deceptions. Initially, the founder’s ambiguous, future‑oriented narratives were accepted as evidence of visionary foresight. As these narratives moved down the organizational hierarchy, they met translational constraints: employees in operational roles had to convert ambiguity into specific projections to coordinate work. As the venture grew, internal and external stakeholders increasingly demanded evidence of delivery, creating an expectations–reality gap that precipitated temporal reorientation: employees shifted from optimistic projections about the future (what the start‑up would do) to inaccurate statements about the past and present (what the start‑up had already achieved). At this tipping point, the statements moved from liminal – existing in a gray zone between right and wrong – to intentionally deceptive. Finally, the necessity of formalization led employees to embed selected claims into official organizational documents, where they became dominant deceptions: specific, past/present‑oriented, codified misrepresentations reproduced across the organization. We identify two supporting mechanisms – interpretive flexibility and moral justification – that sustain this process. The model extends research on misconduct and entrepreneurship by showing how deception can originate internally before external pressure accumulates, and by theorizing the mechanisms that move narratives from ambiguity to codified falsehood.