TY - JOUR AB - Purpose The purpose of this paper is to assess ways in which informality can be understood and reviews an emerging area of management scholarship. The origins and nature of informality are discussed with the aid of two different theoretical tools: “workplace sociology” (WS) and “mixed embeddedness” (ME).Design/methodology/approach The analysis is grounded in empirical material reflecting different aspects of informality mainly within the ethnic economy, such as a study on the implementation of the National Minimum Wage regulations (Ram et al., 2007; Jones et al., 2004, 2006).Findings The authors argue that the combination of WS and ME provides a valuable means of content and character of informality. It can also help to explaining variations and patterns within the informal economy, as well as understanding new forms of informality in the ethnic economy and beyond in “superdiverse” contexts.Originality/value This paper bridges two different theoretical approaches to explain the interactions between the firm and state regulations, as well as the workplace relations between employer and employees. VL - 37 IS - 7/8 SN - 0144-333X DO - 10.1108/IJSSP-06-2016-0075 UR - https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSSP-06-2016-0075 AU - Ram Monder AU - Edwards Paul AU - Jones Trevor AU - Villares-Varela Maria PY - 2017 Y1 - 2017/01/01 TI - From the informal economy to the meaning of informality: Developing theory on firms and their workers T2 - International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy PB - Emerald Publishing Limited SP - 361 EP - 373 Y2 - 2024/09/19 ER -