Big and small business in the history of industrial Italy

-Italy is the country of small and medium size business. This is common wisdom shared by scholars and nonspecialists alike and «sanctioned» by Michael Porter in one of the chapters of his authoritative book The competitive advantage of nations. Indeed, in this respect Italy boasts a record among developed economies: more than 60 percent of the total workforce is active in firms with less than 50 employees. The real problem is that such common wisdom has been embraced also by historians, who have used it to frame their historical analysis.