LA FRAMMENTAZIONE DELL'ATTIVITA' IMPRENDITORIALE IN ITALIA: PROBLEMI, ESITI E SPIEGAZIONI A PARTIRE DA UNO STUDIO DI CASO

In spite of the postwar economic development seen in most industrialized countries, in Italy, small-scale firms have become hegemonic. The diffusion of most small firms arose during the “economic miracle” and has produced many micro production systems across the country. As small firms have increased, diffusion and the strength of labor intensive specialization patterns have been explained by the theories of delayed development and backwardness or “last-comers” theories that have assigned Italy to a low position in the global value chain. Industrial process lag has often been considered the heritage of rural roots, strictly related to human relations and institutions preceding industrialization. Nevertheless, this distinctive form adopted by industrial development has filled a strategic position in promoting national economic growth. The division of labor within firms in Italy has been associated with rapid growth in self-employment and activities related to finance and rental intermediation. Italian entrepreneurial spirit has mostly based its wealth on labor-force accessibility and State financing, which has driven the manufacturing specialization in textiles and leather products, basic metal products, and furniture. These manufacturers need a low technological outlay and a high human labor amount that can easily be portioned. The low capital investment required for enterprise start up has supported a huge increase of firms all over the country. The State has provided a huge range of measures to decrease the production costs, including incentives for many types of firms, financial aid for areas with low socioeconomic status, interventions for exportation and trade, a special system of shock absorbers, and monetary devaluation policies. Despite the significant amount of economic analysis concerning the firm size and its transformations, only contingent research has deepened the relations between industrial structure and State regulation. Contrary to historical approaches based on backwardness late-comers or economic sociology theories of “small firms society”, this phd thesis shall attempt to investigate the central role played by national institutional laws in modeling manufacturing structure. This analysis will point out the engagement of institutions in providing huge financial aid to the growth of enterprises and regulation of specific labor relations. Hence, the system of incentives and financing has produced a dependence attitude that has reduced the entrepreneurial hazard and the commitment to firm investment over a long-term period. Despite economic and historical explanations about Italian poor specialization and backwardness, I will show that the State contingent strategy approach, involving the replacement of industrial policies, indeed, has caused the progressive diminishing of resources to converge to innovation and research, in addition to inducing skill downgrading. The result is a circular process which is enhancing the erosion of Italian manufacturing industry and increasing the vulnerability of the economic system.