āAnti-globalisation is, of course, a nonsenseā. These were Ronald Doreās (2003) opening words at a conference at Bocconi University in Milan in December 2002, during which the author discussed the governance methods of large corporations in the globalised economy. Those who are aware of the analytical work of the English sociologist, recently passed away, will quickly realise that the statement was not at all an acritical acceptance of trends that should be viewed as uniform and inevitable; he was simply emphasising real data that need to be taken seriously, regardless of whether one approves or oneās own personal preferences. Paraphrasing, one may similarly say that āBeing anti-small firms is, of course, a nonsenseā. In fact, the ubiquitous presence of small firms in advanced economies is a reality that it makes no sense either to glorify or demonise, but which must be taken into serious consideration.
However, as a number of authors have observed in various contexts (Birch 1981; Rainnie 1985; Brock and Evans 1989; Blackburn and Smallbone 2008; Acs and Mueller 2008, among others), small firms have long been treated as anachronistic to a greater or lesser extent; and rather limited, and in any event inadequate, attention has been paid to them if we consider their actual quantitative weight. Leaving aside the reality of small companies in emerging countries, which is a peculiar situation in many respects, and which would require separate consideration, we see that according to Eurostat (2018, 1), āin 2015, the overwhelming majority (92.8 per cent) of enterprises in the European Unionās non-financial business economy were enterprises with less than 10 persons employed (micro-enterprises). In contrast, just 0.2 per cent of all enterprises had 250 or more persons employed and were therefore classified as large enterprisesā. In employment terms, one-half of people in employment worked in micro-enterprises or small enterprises (with fewer than 50 persons employed), and the other half worked in medium or large enterprises (with 50 or more persons employed). Moving to the other side of the Atlantic, according to the United States Department of State, āsome 19.6 million Americans work for companies employing fewer than 20 workers, 18.4 million work for firms employing between 20 and 99 workers, and 14.6 million work for firms with 100 to 499 workers; by contrast, 47.7 million Americans work for firms with 500 or more employeesā (Moffatt 2019). Likewise, in Australia, there were 2,051,085 actively trading businesses as of June 2009. Of these, around 96 per cent were small businesses (employing fewer than 20 workers), 4 per cent were medium-sized businesses (employing between 20 and 199 workers), and less than 1 per cent were large businesses (with 200 or more employees) (Australian Government 2011).
These data are not immediately comparable because the official definition of small enterprises, and therefore their statistical accounting, varies depending on the tradition and significance of smaller companies in the various socio-economic contexts. They are very impressive, however, as is often emphasised in the official comments from governments and their statistical offices; for example, in the Eurostat report cited above, small enterprises are called the ābackboneā of the European economy, providing jobs and growth opportunities (Eurostat 2018). In the United States, too, they are defined as ādrivers of the (American) economyā by the Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy, with a capacity for innovation and creativity capable of aiding the recovery from the great recession between mid-2009 and 2011 (Longley 2018). Of course, these comments and interpretations may be slightly sweetened in the wake of the optimistic views expressed by Ingham (1970) and the 1971 Bolton Report in the UK, which were to find an effective and visionary expression in Ernst Schumacherās Small Is Beautiful (1973). On the other hand, as we shall see, there is no lack of far less positive, and even openly critical, assessments that conflict with them, especially on the part of scholars who have studied the reality of small enterprises from a work standpoint (Curran and Stanworth 1981; Rainnie 1989; Wilkinson 1999). The great significance of the āworldā or āsectorā of small enterprises is confirmed from both positions, however.
The purpose of this book is precisely to tackle the quantitatively significant and qualitatively diverseāand even contradictoryāreality of small enterprises. But it aims to do so on the basis of an empirical verification of the facts above and beyond preconceived positions, and focusing on the crucial topic of work and the ways in which it is regulatedāa topic always relevant but of especial interest in this case. However, it will achieve its aim by adopting a perspective that goes beyond focusing on the āworldā or āsectorā of small enterprises as such: a perspective in which an analysis of the dynamics observed within this reality becomes the starting point for a contribution to the debate on the future of labour in general.
As we shall see, the empirical reference is to Italy, a country that can be considered paradigmatic for the purposes of our analysis. The interest of the Italian case does not reside only in the quantitative importance of small firms in that country. It is also, and perhaps above all, due to the development in Italy of a system of employment relationships mediated collectively, and articulated on several levels, that can also affect small businesses. This makes it possible to reason on the topic of regulation of work on the basis of a wider range of options that could be observed in countries where the role of collective representation in small firms is extremely small or non-existent.
In the remainder of this introductory chapter, we will first present the general topic area and analytical framework within which the study is located. The state of the art will then be reviewed and assessed. In the part that follows, the approach adopted in the book is illustrated and discussed. A general presentation of the bookās structure completes the introduction.