Nuova ricerca

Paolo BORGHI

Ricercatore t.d. art. 24 c. 3 lett. A
Dipartimento di Economia "Marco Biagi"

Home | Curriculum(pdf) | Didattica |


Pubblicazioni

2023 - Organising the self-employed: combining community unionism, coworking and cooperativism across contexts [Articolo su rivista]
Pitts, Frederick Harry; Borghi, Paolo; Murgia, Annalisa
abstract

2023 - Representing Solo Self-Employed Workers: The Strengthening of Relations between Traditional and New Collective Actors in Industrial Relations [Articolo su rivista]
Mezihorak, Petr; Murgia, Annalisa; Borghi, Paolo; Mondon-Navazo, Mathilde
abstract

To date, the emergence of representation of hitherto under-represented workers has mainly been analysed in terms of strategic choices of traditional industrial relations actors. This study – focused on solo self-employed workers (SSE) – instead analyses the interactions between unions, employer organisations and new collective actors, namely SSE associations. More specifically, drawing on a comparative ethnography conducted in three European countries, it conceptualises the representation of SSE as a ‘subfield’ of the ‘parent field’ of employee and employer representation and shows how interactions between traditional and new collective actors consolidate the subfield of SSE representation by also shaping the industrial relations’ institutions. This article thus contributes, first, to the debate about the representation of under-represented workers by emphasising the importance of interactions between traditional and new actors in industrial relations, and second, to the theory of fields by conceptualising interactions as a central element of field-level change.

2022 - In search of alternatives for individualised workers: A comparative study of freelance organisations [Articolo su rivista]
Mondon-Navazo, M.; Murgia, A.; Borghi, P.; Mezihorak, P.
abstract

This article contributes to the debate on the enterprise culture, which is characterised by the celebration of risk-taking and self-realisation, which in turn also implies self-responsibilisation and atomisation of the workforce. It does so by investigating organisations created with the aim of finding alternatives for freelancers, who epitomise the processes of individualisation typical of late capitalism. The organisations studied, both companies and cooperatives, aim to enable freelancers to combine autonomy in running their business with access to labour and social rights and inclusion in a collective. Drawing on a multiple case study conducted in France and Italy, the article investigates how organisations can counteract the processes of self-responsibilisation and atomisation of the workforce by enacting principles typical of alternative organisations. This study thus provides a twofold contribution to critical organisational theory and sociological literature on the individualisation of work and feasible alternatives to it. Our findings show, first, that the enterprise culture can be challenged through alternative organising even when freelancers – a category of workers embodying the contemporary processes of individualisation – are at stake. Second, the study of these emerging organisations also contributes to the flourishing debate on alternative organisations by adding an original empirical contribution to ongoing reflections on alternatives to market capitalism.

2022 - Struggling for alternative social imaginaries. A focus on Italian organisations representing food delivery platform workers [Articolo su rivista]
Borghi, Paolo; Murgia, Annalisa
abstract

This article focuses on contemporary social imaginaries emerging in the specific context of food delivery mediated by digital labour platforms (DLPs) in Italy. How can the dominant imaginary constructed by DLPs be challenged? Are there alternative imaginaries to the celebration of individual autonomy and extreme flexibility that can open the possibility of emancipation for platform workers? After introducing the theoretical framework on social imaginaries, technological changes, and possible paths of liberation within and from work, the article explores how the studied organisations – trade unions, grassroots groups, and cooperatives – define themselves and the workers they refer to, and the different social imaginaries they foster in contrast (or sometimes in agreement) to those promoted by DLPs. By proposing the concept of a «struggle for alternative social imaginaries», our findings – based on a multi-sited ethnography – show how the initial dominant imaginary conveyed by DLPs is progressively challenged by the multi-vocality of the counter-social imaginaries promoted by the collective actors representing platform workers.

2021 - High-skilled platform jobs in Europe: Trends, quality of work and emerging challenges [Articolo su rivista]
Pais, I.; Borghi, P.; Murgia, A.
abstract

This article focuses on high-skilled jobs performed through digital labour platforms (DLPs) in Europe. First, it discusses the main typologies developed in recent years to classify DLPs according to the level of skills required of workers. Second, it provides an overview of the available data and attempts to measure this growing phenomenon. Third, it focuses on the quality of high-skilled platform jobs in comparison to both low-to-mediumskilled platform jobs and offline jobs performed by the self-employed. The analysis identified several typical characteristics of platform work that have been overlooked by the debate on the quality of work, which has hitherto mainly been based on dependent employment and offline work. Finally, we conclude by discussing the main challenges that DLPs pose in terms of quality of work.

2021 - Mind the gap between discourses and practices: Platform workers’ representation in France and Italy [Articolo su rivista]
Borghi, P.; Murgia, A.; Mondon-Navazo, M.; Mezihorak, P.
abstract

This article, based on a 6-month cross-national ethnography conducted in France and Italy, aims at contributing to comparative debates on the representation of platform workers. The study takes the cases of both traditional and alternative actors that currently represent platform workers. In particular, by investigating both trade unions and grassroots groups, research findings show the gap between discursive and effective representation in the two European countries studied. Drawing on Hyman and Gumbrell-McCormick’s concept of ‘variable geometry of resistance’, we discuss how these gaps are wider or narrower depending on to what extent – in the two countries and in the studied organizations – there is capacity to build both solidarity in difference and alliances between traditional and alternative actors.

2021 - Self-employed and non-standard workforce collective identities in Italy and the United Kingdom: A comparative perspective on discourses of new collective actors [Articolo su rivista]
Borghi, Paolo
abstract

This paper explores the ideas of collective identity of four new collective actors in Italy and the United Kingdom. In the two countries, which are different in terms of industrial relations systems, similar organisations aim to represent self-employed and non-standard workers performing high and low-skilled jobs. The paper focuses on how the new actors of collective representation react to the fragmentation of the workforce fostering collective identities. In particular, we look at how different emerging organisations conceive and discursively perform – through foundation stories and discourses on «we» and «others» – both their collective identity and that of the workers they aim to represent. We refer on the one hand, as the macro-frame, to the debate developed by industrial relation scholars on neoliberal trends in advanced economies. On the other hand, we aim to contribute to the debate on collective identities in Social Movement Studies, using this frame as an analytical tool to examine the collective identities discursively performed by new collective actorsl involved in workers’ representation.

2020 - Hybrid areas of work between employment and self-employment : emerging challenges and future research directions [Articolo su rivista]
Murgia, A.; Bozzon, R.; Digennaro, P.; Mezihorak, P.; Mondon-Navazo, M.; Borghi, P.
abstract

The growth of non-standard employment relations has created one of the major challenges in terms of workers’ rights as well as collective representation in European societies. Among non-standard employment relations, so-called “solo self-employed”—self-employed workers without employees—are challenging the very foundations of our labor markets, that is to say the opposition between employers and employees, fostering the development of emerging “hybrid” areas of work. The heterogeneity of the solo self-employed is difficult to capture from official statistics, which are still based on traditional classifications, and questions also the legal categories that qualify these workers. Moreover, the fact that solo self-employed workers do not form a homogenous group, and are diverse in terms of their activities, interests and needs, calls for changes in the way trade unions, employer organizations, and new freelancer associations develop collective actions, claims-making activities, and strategies of organizing. With the aim to achieve an in-depth understanding of the increasingly extensive and populated categories of the solo self-employed, this contribution aims at reconstructing the state of the art within different fields of study, such as employment relations, labor law, industrial relations and social movements, and at offering some possible future research directions.

2020 - I nuovi professionisti indipendenti tra deficit di tutele e rappresentanza emergente [Capitolo/Saggio]
Borghi, Paolo
abstract

2019 - Between Precariousness and Freedom: The Ambivalent Condition of Independent Professionals in Italy [Capitolo/Saggio]
Borghi, P; Murgia, A
abstract

2019 - Platform work: From digital promises to labour challenges [Articolo su rivista]
Arcidiacono, D.; Borghi, P.; Ciarini, A.
abstract

The pervasiveness of the digital ecosystem reconfigures the organization of work. The new in-dustrial revolution is increasingly based on the platform as a new productive paradigm. Platforms are more than a technical device and they produce huge effects in the labour market: lowering access credentials and empowering casualization of work, dis/re-intermediation labour demand and supply, affecting motiva-tions and rewarding systems, reconfiguring process of control and risks transfer, renewing regulative standards, or re-organize representativeness and welfare protection. Fragmentation, precariousness, flex-ibility and instability become permanent traits of the workforce fostering the emergence of the cybertari-at. Moreover, connectivity, evaluation and surveillance determine new working conditions tested on workers outside any bargaining process or institutional work arrangement. Platform workers (both high skilled and low skilled) are still largely unorganized and isolated. Similarly to other non-standard workers, they are exposed to the risk of exploitation and free work in a fast evolving economy based on reputation. Despite platform workers are highly differentiated and heterogeneous and difficult to organize collective-ly, forms of collective action are emerging at local and cross-national level.

2019 - The place of self-employment in the European context : evidence from nine country case studies: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom [Capitolo/Saggio]
Beuker, Laura; Borghi, Paolo; Bureau, Marie-Christine; Corsani, Antonella; Gazier, Bernard; Godino, Alejandro; Koene, Bas; Martín-Artiles, Antonio; Molina, Oscar; Mori, Anna; Naedenoen, Frédéric; Norbäck, Maria; Širok, Klemen; Stanic, Maylin; Lars Walter, And
abstract

2018 - Lavorare in piattaforma: esigenze di lavoro, attivazione e rappresentatività nell'era della trasformazione digitale [Working paper]
Borghi, P.
abstract

2018 - Self-employed professionals in the European labour market : a comparison between Italy, Germany and the UK [Articolo su rivista]
Borghi, Paolo; A., Mori; R., Semenza
abstract

The transition to an on-demand service economy, supported by unprecedented technological developments and the digital revolution, has modified traditional self-employed professions and generated new ones, fostering the growth of a body of highly qualified and hyper-specialised self-employed professionals in the European economies. An analysis of this phenomenon highlights three critical questions, connected to their position in the labour market: 1) the contested definition of their legal status and the (ad hoc) regulation adopted; 2) their position within each national social protection system; 3) the complexity of collective representation in a context of major labour market fragmentation. The article explores these issues from a socio-economic perspective, comparing three European countries − Italy, Germany and the UK − with different welfare state regimes and diverse models for regulating professions. First findings show partly divergent responses to such common challenges, yet display some positive signs of change for self-employed professionals.

2017 - Alla ricerca di cittadinanza : il lavoro autonomo professionale in Italia, Germania e Regno Unito [Articolo su rivista]
R., Semenza; A., Mori; Borghi, Paolo
abstract

The deep revolution in the production system with the transition to a service economy has been supported by the innovative power of new technologies that have altered the traditional professions and have generated new ones. In particular, these changes have fostered the proliferation of independent, highly qualified professionals in some areas of the service sector. The phenomenon has highlighted three problems related to the new self-employed: 1) the contested definition of the legal status and forms of regulation adopted; 2) their position in the social protection system; 3) the complexity of the collective representation of interests, within a context of great labour fragmentation. In such framework the article explores these emerging issues from a comparative perspective, considering the different institutional responses across three European countries − Italy, Germany, and the United Kingdom − that embody different systems of welfare and diverse models of labour market and professions regulation. These early results show a mixed picture, with shared challenges and partly divergent responses that denote, however, signals of change with a potential positive impact on the insider-outsider divide.

2017 - I molteplici volti del free work e della flessibilità degli i-pros : dispositivi e spazi di (contro)soggettivazione [Articolo su rivista]
Borghi, P.; Cavalca, G.
abstract

The authors reflect on some pervasive features of contemporary work starting from the independent professionals, a paradigmatic figure of the contemporary capitalist system. Their flexibility and performativity, moulded on the logic of cognitive capitalism, are traits shared by a progressively growing portion of workers. The authors propose the investigation of steering media, taking up the reflections developed by Habermas and Gorz, and foucaultian apparatuses which shape the daily practices of work in order to explore the multiple forms of free work. The analysis of the metropolis conceived as a meta-apparatus and the analysis of significant steering media related to independent professionals are essential, according to the authors, to recognize the cracks of the dominant paradigm and possible spaces for counter-subjectivities.

2017 - Lavoro autonomo e forme della rappresentanza [Capitolo/Saggio]
Borghi, Paolo; Sinibaldi, Elena
abstract

2017 - Rappresentare è.. [Working paper]
Borghi, P.
abstract

2016 - Arcipelago Gig : ovvero la resistibile autarchia dell'economia dei lavoretti [Working paper]
Borghi, P.
abstract

2016 - Dimensions of precariousness: Independent Professionals between market risks and entrapment in poor occupational careers [Articolo su rivista]
Borghi, P.; Cavalca, G.; Fellini, I.
abstract

This article looks at the multifaceted precariousness of independent professionals through a qualitative analysis based in the urban area of Milan (Italy). It supports the hypothesis that at a more advanced stage of independent professionals' careers, the analysis of precariousness as a market risk can be enriched by adding the concept of 'entrapment' in vulnerable working paths and working and living conditions to the definition of poor occupational careers. Entrapment can be considered as the long-lasting condition of a large and weak part of young-adult independent professionals beyond the first stages of their careers. Our fieldwork confirms the widespread fragmentation of careers and increasing difficulties for young professionals to improve their positions due to structural economic and organisational changes. Four career dynamics of independent professionals emerge from the qualitative analysis - successful, dynamic, entrapped and temporarily interrupted. Career strategies play a major role in determining successful outcomes, but social relations are confirmed as also crucially important for job success, providing professional networks, welfare support and 'local professional integration'

2016 - Identità collettive tra i professionisti indipendenti : esplorare le tentazioni corporative e le sperimentazioni di contro-soggettivazione a Milano [Capitolo/Saggio]
Borghi, P.; Cavalca, G.
abstract

2015 - Figure contemporanee del lavoro : chi partecipa, chi si mobilita [Monografia/Trattato scientifico]
Borghi, P.; Elia, M.
abstract

2015 - Frammentazione e individualizzazione della domanda di tutela : l'esperienza dei giovani professionisti nel milanese [Capitolo/Saggio]
Borghi, P.; Mingione, E.; Andreotti, A.; Benassi, D.; Cavalca, G.; Fellini, I.
abstract

2015 - Frammentazione e individualizzazione della domanda di tutela. L'esperienza dei giovani professionisti nel milanese [Capitolo/Saggio]
Mingione, E; Andreotti, A; Benassi, D; Borghi, P; Fellini, I
abstract

2015 - Frontiere della rappresentanza: potenzialità e limiti organizzativi dell’offerta rivolta ai professionisti indipendenti [Articolo su rivista]
Borghi, P.; Cavalca, G.
abstract

2015 - Lavoratori della conoscenza: resistenza e resa? Dialogo sulle pratiche e le teorie [Articolo su rivista]
Bertuzzi, Niccolò; Borghi, Paolo
abstract

The first part of the paper is the result of a dialogue between the two authors, who differ in terms of age, career, family and perspective of mobility; it is shaped as an exemplary narration of an ideal-typical knowledge worker: it is an attempt to explore professional and existential status beyond the single individual(istic) perspective and overcoming the temptation to see ourselves as members of a class, that of precarious workers, which is too vague to be useful. Here we introduce the concepts of sceptical volunteering and professional in-volunteering. The second part, also based on a dialogue, presents a short reflection on the golden cage of contemporary capitalism, developing the idea of precariousness as a condition (not a class) and proposing some prospects for emancipation which acknowledge the numerous existing subjectivities and their resources. In the conclusions we stress the social urgency of rebuilding a grammar of relations based on the structuring potential of capitalism, but without its goals and results.

2015 - Le organizzazioni sociali e i giovani professionisti nell'area milanese [Capitolo/Saggio]
Mingione, E.; Andreotti, A.; Benassi, D.; Borghi, P.; Cavalca, G.; Fellini, I.
abstract

2014 - Frammentazione e individualizzazione della domanda di tutela : l'esperienza dei giovani professionisti nel milanese [Articolo su rivista]
Mingione, E.; Andreotti, A.; Benassi, D.; Borghi, P.; Cavalca, G.; Fellini, I.
abstract

This paper, ideally complementing the previous article, addresses the demand for representation among highly qualified young professionals and it is based on the analysis of interviews conducted in the metropolitan area of Milan. The interviewees rarely refer to common rights and needs and only a weak perception and consciousness of universal right seems to emerge; protection and representation issues are unevenly perceived by the interviewees. In the article we describe different profiles of the young professionals: some of them conceive rights as individual achievement; others aspire to specific forms of protection and support within the professional sector; others more radically claim rights and protections.

2014 - Le organizzazioni sociali e i giovani professionisti nell'area milanese [Articolo su rivista]
Mingione, E.; Andreotti, A.; Benassi, D.; Borghi, P.; Cavalca, G.; Fellini, I.
abstract

This article presents – in connection with the following article – the first results of a Prin-Miur project on issues related to the representation of young qualified professionals. Our main aim is to outline the forms and workings of organizations representing and protecting workers experiencing increasing precariousness, but at the same time unable to express a clear request of representation. The article is based on the analysis of 16 organizations in the area of Milan, and tries to show their organizational characteristics, their mobilization and consent strategies and their relationships among them.

2013 - Lavoratori non standard e rappresentanza: nuove organizzazioni e domanda di rappresentanza dei lavoratori ad elevata qualificazione a Milano [Relazione in Atti di Convegno]
Andreotti, A; Benassi, D; Borghi, P; Cavalca, G; Fellini, I; Mingione, E
abstract

Il paper presenta i primi risultati di un progetto Prin (2009) su Giovani e deficit della rappresentanza: trasformazioni del lavoro e nuovi rischi sociali a Milano, con due obiettivi fondamentali che strutturano lo stesso paper. Innanzitutto, vengono esplorati i mutamenti dell'offerta di rappresentanza a favore di lavoratori non standard ad elevata qualificazione a Milano, in considerazione della forte presenza, sia quantitativa che qualitativa, di organizzazioni di rappresentanza di tipo professionale o comunque rivolte a lavoratori impiegati con contratti non standard. In secondo luogo, il paper si propone di indagare quale se domanda di rappresentanza esprimono questi lavoratori una a fronte del processo di crescente individualizzazione della condizione occupazionale.