The paper focuses attention on small scale firms in Calabria, analyzing their features, their functioning, their strategies of labor regulation, by considering the characteristics of the local context: the so called Italian Mezzogiorno. In particular, Calabria is characterized by a strong combination among politics, institutions and sectors of the local economy, with a relevant incidence of the informal and “black” economy. However, the paper shows that small scale firms in Calabria, in virtue of their own localization, have structured flexible productive and organizational models appropriate to operate in the local environment.
Keywords: Labor, small scale firms, regulation, development, informal economy