This book examines how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are reshaping social protection as public welfare systems face mounting pressures. Challenging the pervasive “large-firm bias” in welfare studies, the author reframes the fragmented Italian model as a critical laboratory for the post-industrial West. Drawing on 90 interviews across 30 Italian SMEs, the research reveals how occupational welfare measures, from healthcare and pensions to CSR initiatives and digital services, are experienced by employees. It advances an original framework based on an “adaptive-relational hybrid,” demonstrating how SME welfare is driven by relational proximity and informal reciprocity rather than bureaucratic isomorphism. The analysis unpacks the daily realities of bounded rationality, institutional distrust, and the digitalization paradox, where technology risks generating administrative sludge unless paired with a human-centric approach. Warning against the silent privatization of public welfare and deepening territorial polarization, the book provides policy-oriented recommendations for an integrated, multi-pillar ecosystem. This volume is an important reading for academics in sociology, social policy, and organizational studies; policymakers addressing welfare reform; and business leaders navigating the changing landscape of social protection in fragmented economies.
