Perceived Fairness and Worker Well-Being in Public, For-Profit and Non-Profit Firms: Evidence from the Italian Social Service Sector

This essay analyzes the links between workers’ fairness concerns and job satisfaction in different ownership and organizational forms of the Italian social service sector. Social cooperatives emerge as the organizational form that best sustains the perception of procedural fairness. On the other hand, the public sector shows the most serious weaknesses. A clear difference emerges between the public and the private sector in general, with the former at a disadvantage. Given the very significant role of procedural fairness in influencing job satisfaction, social cooperatives turn out as an innovative and successful organizational form, at least as far as labour relations are concerned, the difficulties in retaining their more educated and skilled workforce notwithstanding.