Strategising practices in an informal economy setting: A case of strategic networking

Despite the increasing interest in strategy as situated practice, studies that examine strategising practices in the informal economy are lacking. This article draws on Bourdieu's theory of practice to understand strategic networking practices in an informal economy setting. Employing ethnographic techniques, it sets out to study how an informal business and its network partners do strategic networking. We found that their strategic networking practices pivot around co-opetition, and are characterised within four interconnected themes: open communication, mutual surrogacy, fraternal engagement and naturalisation. These themes are constitutive of an interrelated set of field-specific practices, capital, habitus and dispositions of the informal business and its network partners. The study contributes to strategy-as-practice and strategic networking literature by showing how actors adopt and internalise strategising practices, and how this predisposition may be traced to strategic networking practices, choices and outcomes.