Comprendere le piccole imprese : elogio delle diversità in uno sguardo globale

The article draws attention to the widespread erroneous tendency to consider small enterprises as both a homogeneous and substantially closed world. After having explored strengths and limits, complexity and heterogeneity of this large part of the economy, the author focuses on the specific ways in which labour is here regulated. In particular, through the combination of two dimensions - the representation of labour and the degree of workplace welfare - four different patterns of employment relations are identified, thus going beyond the traditional opposite visions of small enterprises as the domain of managerial autocracy or else of harmonious employment relations. In the end, what is at stake today in the field of work more in general the need for a new imagination of the ways in which labour can be represented and protected. [Publisher's Text].