Abstract

Five years after the signing of the "23 July 1993 agreement", decentralised bargaining on compensations has been outlined as a powerful policy instrument for fostering the growth of firms competitiveness in global goods and labour markets. Firms competitiveness strongly depends on local conditions on which development is rooted. Two options are foreseen. The first one consists of reacting to social dumping policies with "defensive flexibility", increasing price competitiveness only by unit labour cost reductions. An alternative to this policy is the search of "innovative flexibility" which - within a context of involvement and social inclusiveness - is based on the ability to compete along non-traditional industrial trajectories, the role of training, on competence and skills of human resources, the diffusion of participation and social cohesion systems. These help cultural enrichment even of those social forces and territorial areas which are excluded from the processes of physical and intangible growth of economic systems. This research aims to analysing bargaining of performance related pay at firm level in the local area of Udine, in order to identify the emerging of either a traditional wage flexibility or a compensation system based on worker participation, i.e. a "low road" or a "high road" to system flexibility.