Strategic Resilience through Informality: How African Startups Navigate Institutional Weaknesses

Institutional weakness is a defining feature of many African economies, yet little is known about how startups adapt strategically to persistent volatility. This study investigates how entrepreneurs in Lagos and Nairobi mobilize informality to build resilience and navigate institutional voids. Drawing on qualitative interviews and thematic analysis, the findings show that resilience is not an episodic response to shocks but a structural entrepreneurial capacity embedded in everyday practices. Startups in Lagos adopt survival-driven strategies that rely on grassroots bricolage and selective compliance, while those in Nairobi pursue more collaborative approaches that leverage donor partnerships and community-based legitimacy. Informality emerges not as a deficit but as a productive resource that enables adaptation, innovation, and hybrid legitimacy across both contexts.Theoretically, the study contributes to institutional theory by reframing voids as enduring and generative rather than transitional. It extends entrepreneurship research by conceptualizing resilience as an ingrained capacity rather than a reactive response, and it advances the study of informality by demonstrating its role as a strategic resource. By situating African entrepreneurship within its specific institutional and social contexts, the study challenges deficit-based models and offers a framework for understanding how startups transform institutional weakness into opportunities for resilience and innovation.Keywords: African entrepreneurship, institutional voids, resilience, bricolage, informality, hybrid legitimacy