Features shaping second-level bargaining: the case of the Brescian industrial system

In this paper, we focus on limited and joint-stock active companies operating between 2008 and 2016 within the Brescian manufacturing system (n=7,619). After processing data for 1,047 firm-level agreements, we examined the impact of economic and organisational features on companies’ decentralised bargaining activity. In a first probit model, the purely economic-financial variables included do not explain company bargaining behaviour. However, a second probit model with only organisational variables shows that the largest and longest lasting companies were more likely to sign new agreements. In addition, while firm bargaining history tended to increase the likelihood of an agreement being signed, family-type governance had the opposite effect. Potential explanations of these findings are discussed, mainly in consideration of the widespread diffusion of a decentralised bargaining model based on family-type ownership and medium-small corporate dimensional scale.