Abstract

Tourism is crucial for the economic development of Italy and has great potentials. The sector reacted to the crisis better than other branches. However, it tends to lose market share and international competitiveness. Can decentralized bargaining and innovative management of human resources contribute to countering this trend? Giving an answer to this question is the goal of this essay. In the first part of this work the analysis follows a more general approach, aimed at examining the objectives of decentralized bargaining in Italy and the debate on the most innovative forms of work organization; the second part focuses on the tourism sector, analysing the evolution of productivity and wages, the composition of human capital with employees' characteristics, employment contracts, and long-life training. All these elements could influence innovations. Effectively, decentralized bargaining could be an instrument to introduce innovations to work organisation. This paper also analyses some regional and company agreement. Finally, a series of recommendations to achieve these goals are presented.