INFORMALITY · Re-Imagining Informality: Theorizing Informal Entrepreneurship and Economic Change in Transition Era China (1970s–1980s)

Although informality has long been considered a barrier to economic development, as more emerging market economies achieve growth even while remaining stubbornly informal, this assumption has become a subject of debate. Recent management scholarship has highlighted the supporting roles that informality plays in economies and the opportunities it provides for marginalized populations. Yet, because of the phenomenological and ahistorical nature of this work, the processes by which informality is produced, how it evolves over time, and how it influences macroeconomic change remain undertheorized. In this project, I attempt to address these lacunae through a novel historical approach and the analysis of unconventional sources collected from Chinese flea markets. Specifically, I apply the tools and frameworks of microhistory to analyze thousands of decommissioned case files of entrepreneurial actors who were prosecuted by Chinese state agencies in the 1970s and 1980s. Through this analysis I aim to: 1) Map the structure of informal networks of state and non-state actors and theorize the mechanisms by which they enabled the creative recombination of capital, labor, and knowledge; 2) Discover and categorize the collusive practices by which these actors pursued entrepreneurial opportunities, circumvented institutional constraints, and mitigated risk; 3) Reveal the entrepreneurial role of local administrators and theorize how their actions reshaped the context in which informal entrepreneurship operated. Through the fulfillment of these objectives, the project seeks to revise existing theories of informality by calling attention to how formal/informal boundaries were contextually and historically contingent and by revealing the bottom-up processes through which informal entrepreneurship drives change. The project also aims to generate societal and economic impact by developing applied business insights that will inform new entrepreneurial educational initiatives.