Labor Regulation in Small Firms: Lessons for Reconsidering the Traditional Paradigm of Employment/Industrial Relations

Drawing on the results of an establishment survey  on labor regulation in small firms in four Italian regions - which represents the first part of a wider project on “Old and new paths of labor regulation in SMEs in European countries: Trends and challenges for economic competitiveness and social sustainability” - the paper aims first at exploring and discussing the specific characteristics of employment relations in firms in which the traditional institutions, practices and customs of employment /industrial relations did not/cannot develop. It then tries to build on these outcomes to  reconsider and discuss the assumptions that are at the basis of the ways in which employment/industrial relations are conceptualized.  Some first elements for a wider, more general, theoretical approach to the field of employment/industrial relations are finally outlined.