Organization and Quality of Work in Social Services of the Mezzogiorno

The recent emerging visions of the labor market, aimed at going beyond the concept of productivity as theorized in classical economic thought, have encouraged the rise of studies and investigations on the theme of job quality. Job quality is a multidimensional concept composed of several complementary aspects that are neither separable nor hierarchical. It is therefore difficult to provide a single definition, although it can be stated that the analysis of job quality extends the concept of working conditions to include elements such as: the social climate of the work environment, personal satisfaction, the worker’s control over organizational dynamics and work processes, and so on. In social services, the issue of job quality is particularly significant due to the highly labor-intensive nature of these interventions. The central role of the human factor in the provision of social services strongly highlights key quality elements such as: worker satisfaction, participation in decision-making processes, and the social recognition of one’s profession, among others. The significant employment growth observed in the non profit sector – particularly in social services – over the past decade also calls for a broad analysis of the sector, aimed at understanding the presence of quality-related factors. Based on data from the 5th INAPP survey on social services provided by the nonprofit sector, this paper aims to outline an organizational profile of social service providers. The paper intends to examine the enterprises supplying social services through organizational dimensions that help assess their focus on quality. These dimensions concern the characteristics of the organizations and human resources, production controls, participation in decision-making processes, aptitudes required to work in social services, and so on. Each of these factors will be analyzed in light of several cross-cutting aspects specific to each organization (such as geographical area, legal form, size, etc.).