Entrepreneurship at the edge of informality and digitalization: Mapping hybrid business models in underinstitutionalized contexts

Shabbir, Muhammad; Salman, Rabia

Entrepreneurship at the edge of informality and digitalization: Mapping hybrid business models in underinstitutionalized contexts

Shabbir, Muhammad ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0796-0456 and Salman, Rabia (2026) Entrepreneurship at the edge of informality and digitalization: Mapping hybrid business models in underinstitutionalized contexts. Journal of Small Business Management. pp. 1-39.

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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/00472778.2025.2606049

Abstract

This study examines how digitalization and informality jointly shape hybrid business models in underinstitutionalized contexts, using a bibliometric–systematic literature review of 263 peer-reviewed articles (2009–2024). We identify four thematic clusters: digital labor and informal platforms, social-media-enabled ventures, hybrid innovation in urban informal economies, and digitally mediated financial and learning infrastructures. Integrating institutional voids theory, hybrid organization theory, digital platform governance, and opportunity construction theory, the study develops the construct of digital-informal institutional bricolage—an adaptive process through which entrepreneurs recombine informal norms, digital infrastructures, and selected formal institutional elements. The findings show how entrepreneurs leverage digital tools and grounded legitimacy to construct opportunities, coordinate exchange, and navigate platform asymmetries and regulatory fragmentation. The study provides a coherent conceptual foundation for analyzing hybrid entrepreneurship, offers policy insights on flexible legitimacy pathways and inclusive platform design, and outlines future research directions on temporal dynamics, intersectionality, and formal–informal complementarities.