Legal premises and social impact evaluation around the practical and moral potentialities of Smart Working as a new organizational labor model

Abstract

The thesis developed is divided into five chapters and is aimed at deeply observe and examine the subject of Smart Working in the Italian context, in terms of the fundamental ideological and legal pillars upon which it is grounded in, the positive and negative aspects which compose its structure, the prime benefits it is expected to provide and the relationship it entails with the sociological field in addition to the comparison with the American case. Going into more details, the first chapter will be dedicated to a complete description of the institution of Smart Working, starting from the historical premises and general definition to consequently list the most important founding principles and the major analogies and differences with other working methods. The second chapter will be entirely dedicated to the analysis of the Italian regulatory and legal system in terms of Labor Law and its evolution during time since it could be considered as the basic starting point for the provision of a successful organization and realization of Smart Working, with particular attention paid to the law 81/2017. The third chapter is designated to the analysis of the most important positive implications that this working form should produce for what concern health, security and individual well-being if all the characters involved in the structure behaved correctly: employers and employees rights and duties have primary importance but also the intervention of the EU Commission on the subject matter shows to consider as a main concern the efficiency of the Smart Working institution. The second to last chapter is aimed at showing the mechanisms and effects involved in the Smart Working commitment from a sociological point of view, taking into consideration phenomena as isolation, distractions and fusion between personal/professional life, Bornout and status quo bias, as main terms of analysis. One specific paragraph is also dedicated to the female working situation within the SMART conditions. The last chapter will be useful to develop a comparison between the Italian actual situation of development and progress of Smart Working with respect to a completely different reality from the geo-political and cultural point of view as the one of USA, in its way of managing the same institution of remote working. Conclusions will take stock of the achievement reached by this innovative way of working considering the national political viewpoint and the individual work-life balance considerations.